Blood, Sweat and Tears
by TheDarkFlygon
Summary: During an afternoon, Mitsuki and Iori are met with an armed man who runs after them as they've spotted him. They're eventually cornered in a place dear to their childhood. Sometimes, you just can't win without sacrificing a little of yourself, and Mitsuki learns that the hard way. From then on, it's all issues and troubles.
1. A Warm Summer Day

It was a warm day of summer, with a bright blue sky, cloudless, sun shining brightly.

But as far as he was concerned, it could had been hailing clouds and cold outside, because that weather definitely didn't fit the mood he was in.

After looking through the window for a few minutes, he walked back into the maze of white corridors, swearing quietly to himself, and for once, praying everything would be all right, when nothing was right and when he was crossing the despair horizon.

It was a warm day of summer, with a bright blue sky, cloudless, sun shining brightly.

And since it was so good outside, and that it was everyone's day off, Mitsuki decided it would be a good occasion to spend the day with his little brother. It had been a while since they even had the opportunity to do so. He loved being an idol, but he had to admit it was a very busy lifestyle.

Not to toot his own horn, but Mitsuki was pretty proud of having had that idea in the first place. The day was going just amazingly: the weather showed no sign of deteriorating, nobody had spotted them in the streets (as much as he loved their fans, he wanted to be his brother and just his brother for a day) and he managed to get a few laughs from the usually stiff Iori.

Someday, he would have to train him or something not to be so stiff and be more open and expressing. One day, that would get him into troubles, a lot of troubles would he say so himself. For the time being, it was just the time to enjoy themselves like they couldn't had done so in ages.

They were discussing some I7-related things in a calm and desert street when Iori suddenly stopped in his tracks. Surprised, his older sibling did too, only to notice right after this there was a guy shooting at something at a few meters away from them. Like that. In the middle of a street, in public, shooting something hidden in a probably shady alley. Needless to say, he wasn't reassured, but he wouldn't let himself get scared.

"Let's turn back, Iori," he whispered, already backing a foot down to rapidly run away from the situation.

It was already too late. The guy had turned back, facing them and staring right at the younger brother. It was time to run away, as fast as they could, and lose the guy in the middle of the city. Grabbing Iori's wrist, he rushed back, thinking about where they could go to escape from him. There was no way he was trusting a guy who somehow had a gun on him. A fucking gun of everything!

Adrenaline rushed right when he needed it the most. Quick glances behind him revealed the guy was keeping up with them just as well, if not better, but wasn't shooting. He was probably unable to shoot them while running, that was a plus already. Still, they had to lose him if they wanted to spend the rest of the day peacefully and not in a morgue or something in the like.

There was no way either of them was getting buried anytime soon.

"Where are we going…?" his brother rasped between two breaths, blindly following him.

And, well, Mitsuki didn't have any idea of where they were going. He hadn't even thought about it, actually, in the rush of things.

"Huh… You have any idea, Iori…?"

The latter took a somewhat pensive stance as they were still running for their lives, turning sharply in a rather dark alley.

"I don't think we can actually outrun him, brother… Maybe… We should go to the wooden cottage where you used to bring me… And call for help there…"

"You're probably right on the outrunning him thing… Let's do that…!"

The wooden cottage was a place they hadn't been here in literally years. It was a panoramic spot they used to go to when they were children, and even if he never got to know the real name of the place, Mitsuki was grateful for two things: for his little brother to have such quick thinking, and for him to remember by heart the way there. Clearly, they didn't form an informal duo for nothing.

There, they would just have to climb a staircase they knew too well, get a shelter inside the wooden cottage and wait for help to arrive. It would give any of them the time to call the police or any local authority figure.

They were halfway there, and the guy still hadn't lost their track. Adrenaline was running off and, honestly, they were both breathless. He could only hope their enemy was as breathless as they were, if not even more. They couldn't keep running if they were exhausted anyway, so praying with all his soul they wouldn't be killed during a moment of vulnerability, he made the both of them walk as long as they were partially hidden by the darkness of one narrow, almost impossible to find street.

Walking with almost-empty lungs was painful, sure, but it was survival. There was no way they were dying today. He'd never allow that to happen, not when he could something about both his brother and him. As the older sibling, it was simply his duty to protect his younger sibling. And he would do so, just at the cost of no one's life.

Once out of the dark alley, Mitsuki was relieved to notice the armed guy wasn't behind them anymore. They had outrun him, right? Finally, he sighed in relief.

"We finally… escaped from him…" he told his brother, still out of breath.

Iori's face wasn't as bright as his. It looked more perplexed.

"I think we should still… reach the cottage and advise there… Who knows, he may just be waiting for us in the alley…"

Mitsuki gulped. He wasn't wrong. In fact, he was sharply right.

"Let's… Let's do that…"

They resumed getting to their promised land, this time around walking. It was silent at first: mostly because they were both still trying to catch their breath and preserve their energy, but it also allowed for them to spot any suspicious sound. Of course, Mitsuki was easily scared by the situation: any cracking leaf, any noise could be a sign of the gun-wielding man about to shoot them in the head, yet there was nothing.

Nothing about that guy was near them. He didn't know if he should had been afraid or relieved, but either way, there was still anxiety taking over all of his brain. He knew doing something irrational would be a disaster, especially if he slipped up, so he tried to push his impulsiveness on the side. He had to be patient and vigilant to escape danger.

After a while, they just resumed speaking. First about the mess they were in, because that was all his brain could process for a time, but it branched out from there after a while. While a part of him was still acutely aware of their surroundings, glancing back a few times every couple minute, another was infinitely soother than it could had been before and so by a landslide. It seemed like everything would be all right.

They peacefully arrived at the panoramic spot, and Mitsuki couldn't help but feel a rush of nostalgy going through his blood. It really had been ages since they had last been there. Not a decade, but still a long time ago. They were both so much younger, when he had last seen the spot. Actually, it had changed a bit since then: the cottage had been replaced by a hut who lacked a front façade. It was easier to see the landscape, he figured.

The place was, aside from that, identical to the one from his memories: a peaceful piece of grass and stone, with the wooden hut on top of a small hill, connected to the ground level by old stones which looked like they hadn't changed in centuries. It was quiet, with only the sound of the peaceful wind in the few trees surrounding them around the two.

They had almost reached the top of the covered-in-moss stone staircase when they heard rushing footsteps. In a reflex, fully knowing it was the guy again, Mitsuki blocked the way in the best of his abilities. A few pieces of wood here and there, some rocks, really anything. They were in a hurry, so he didn't have much time to think, except to block the small gate that closed or opened the way to the stairs and, as such, the hut. Once he had made sure (or at least, was sure enough) it was blocked, he ran to Iori, who was already at the stop of the stairs.

Even on the way to the top, Mitsuki got out his phone and dialled the emergency number. There was no way their potential killer wouldn't shoot on sight as soon as he had reached them. His "lock" wouldn't last that long. And, most of all: a gun didn't need to get past a gate to shoot them, especially if there was no real façade to protect them. They were in danger, and he was certain it just hadn't kicked them in hard enough yet.

A quick glance to the ground floor told him the guy was already in position to shoot. A bullet flew right past him, just inches close to damaging at least his clothes, if not his skin. He was a lousy shooter, but a shooter nonetheless.

"Big brother," Iori suddenly told him as he looked below them, "please continue telling them about us and our situation, and don't focus on him. I'll take care of it."

Mitsuki was, honestly, not sure this was such a good idea, even coming from his brother.

"You're sure about that? I have eyes too, you know, I can use them!"

"Please do as I say!" sputtered the younger boy almost in an impulse, stress getting to him too it seemed.

"O-okay, as you say…"

The older sibling put the phone next to his ear again, carefully listening to the other side of the line as he gave their location and tried to detail the scene. He couldn't look too much at it, in case it upset an already anxious Iori, but he did notice no bullet had flown past him for a while. The shooter really was a bad one, huh.

At one point, there was less light than previously. If he had to guess, it was Iori walking here and there, predicting where the next shot would be. The noise of bullets was more or less quiet, and he could be certain some of them only encountered the wall. Even if he was finished explaining everything, they had told him not to hang up, so the phone stayed on and on-dial.

"I'm finished! Everything's fine?"

Mitsuki saw red splatters on the stone floor of the hut where Iori was when he was calling.

And, well, Iori wasn't there with the splatters.

Some of them had been smeared towards the back of the hut, as if someone had stepped in them then made their way back to the wall. It was when he noticed the guy was shooting anymore. Perhaps he had run out of bullets.

His eyes followed the train, while he was hoping it wasn't what it was, from the depths of his heart. He did, so bad. They lead to the wall, to the back. That was when his previously numbed hearing unveiled itself, and he heard one terrifying sound he didn't think he would hear in his life: the heavy, panicked breathing of someone dear to him, perhaps the dearest.

In a bolt, not ready to face what was awaiting him, Mitsuki looked at the back wall anyway. And instantly regretted trusting Iori.

The smeared blood lead to his own brother, sweating heavily, his skin three shades paler than it ordinarily was. His breathing had become panting, heavy yet fragile, trembling with every breathe-in and breathe-out. As if someone had stolen his air. There were tears forming in the corners of his eyes, ready to fall, something a pair of them had already done before Mitsuki looked at the scene.

His left lower abdomen was soaked in blood, a hand pressed against it, the other taking support on the wall, just like his back and back of his head.

Mitsuki just ran to his brother, almost throwing his phone on the floor if it meant reaching him sooner, instead putting it inside his pocket. Not a care in the world if it was still dialling or not. It wasn't his concern. Not now. Iori raised his head when he saw him approaching. A pained, if not sorrowful, look appeared on his face between two beads of sweat and a half-closed eye.

"Bro… Brother…" he muttered, barely looking up. Despite being taller than his sibling, he lost his height as soon as he glided along the wall.

Something had stolen Mitsuki's voice. He wanted to scream, scream at the guy, scream at himself, scream at Iori. Yet, he couldn't even speak. He was terrified and upset, just waiting for someone to save them when they couldn't do it themselves, and mostly, horrified by what had happened behind his back.

Instead, he just kneeled down to his brother and cried. He had always been a cry-baby, but there was no way he could retain his tears in this predicament. He was outraged, yet he couldn't find in himself the capacity to scream. All he could do was cry and whisper. Whisper to someone fucking dying in front of him!

"Why… why did you do this, Iori…?" was all that escaped his mouth.

Iori didn't respond, at first. Whether it was because he didn't know how, because he was considering all the possible options and their outcomes, or because he was losing consciousness, Mitsuki didn't know. All he knew, was that he wanted an answer, anything! He needed to hear him more than anything else and more than anytime yet!

"I took care of it…"

Well, that was all he was going to get, right? Iori was in no shape to talk about deep things and self-sacrifices at the moment. Even if it was what he had just pulled out even if it was a garbage idea with garbage consequences, because of course it would, he was the worst of them when it came to dealing with pressure and confrontation!

"I thought we had been clear on something, Iori… I was supposed to protect you, because I'm your big brother. Not the opposite way around!"

"He was going to… shoot you in the head…"

The cold tone of this sentence made Mitsuki realize there was a second bullet wound, on Iori's shoulder. Or, approximately, the height of his brother's head.

"You… you're right…" came out of his mouth in a horrified tone. Because that what he was. Horrified.

He really would had died on the spot, had Iori not taken the bullet for him, knowing it wasn't immediately lethal to him.

Unable to retain whimpers any longer, Mitsuki just clutched his brother next to him, pulling him into the tightest embrace.

"Please…. Please don't die on me…!"

"You're going to… have blood on you… big brother…"

"Who cares about that! You're _dying_ , Iori!"

He wasn't controlling his words anymore.

"You'd have died, though… if I hadn't done that…"

Iori's faint voice and weak tone just tucked heartstring after heartstring.

"I know! I know that, Iori! That's why I can't blame you! That's why I can't have you dying on me!"

It was a warm day of summer, with a bright blue sky, cloudless, sun shining brightly.

It was meant to be a fun day between brothers, yet there he was, crying his heart out, clutching onto his sibling for the latter's life, sirens drowning his hearing, muffling it to the point he couldn't hear his own sorrow running down his cheeks.


	2. Links of Blood

He had to go back to the dorm. Alone. They had told him to do so, at least, right as his world had stopped. The sirens were still ringing inside his head, throbbing against his guilt. Not that he didn't want to go to the hospital, despite a natural dislike of these, but because he had been told so. And, moreover, he had to explain the situation to everyone else. They were one and only one group, and it was normal to tell everyone else that one of them was more than down.

And, also, on the verge of dying.

No matter how many times he wiped his tears, no matter how many times he shook his head furiously, no matter how many times he bit his lip, it would come back. The thought his brother was dying. His little brother had taken not one, but two bullets for him, yet he wasn't able to do anything for it. He hadn't been able to protect his baby brother.

Because, yes, he couldn't consider Iori in any other way than this. He was his baby brother, even if he had just taken a hit for him, to save him, like an older sibling would protect his younger one. That meant he had failed as the older brother. He was meant to protect, not to be protected.

Mitsuki wasn't ready to face everyone. Not after everything was so fresh in his mind, carved into his soul. Physically, he probably looked like the saddest little thing ever. His steps were slow and heavy, barely lifting themselves from the sidewalk under his feet, because he wasn't ready, and he hoped he would be if he took his time. Well, he didn't have so much time, because he also wanted to be by Iori's side as soon as possible (hoping it wouldn't be in a goddamn morgue), and the two wants were contradicting themselves inside his turmoil of a mind.

He wasn't ready because it was his fault. He shouldn't have trusted Iori about that. He should had known better, he should had known his brother better. Maybe his idea was garbage. Maybe that, if he hadn't made them run away, nobody would had been in danger in the first place.

He cried again.

The dorm wasn't too far off from the panoramic spot. At least, not as far as Mitsuki had thought it was. He still wasn't ready to face everyone for what had just happened. Who would be? He had just seen someone almost die on him. For him. Because, apparently, his life was worth more than another. That was garbage. That was all garbage! This entire situation was complete garbage!

As he faced the door, he breathed in, breathed out, breathed in, breathed out. Nothing was going to make him any readier. It was too late for that, far too late. So he just had to brace himself for the worst, and enter the dorm.

As soon as he opened the door, his eyes met with the manager's. She ran to him, while he just walked towards her after taking off his shoes. And goodness did she look panicked all of a sudden.

"Mitsuki-san!" she yelled as she ran to him. Her voice was full of urgency too.

"Ah, Manager…"

"You're alone? Where's…"

Her voice paused, as her eyes grew wide.

"Why are you covered in blood?!"

Mitsuki looked, dumbfounded, at his hands and clothes. His hands are full of half-dried blood, so his is shirt. Of Iori's drying blood. Her reaction wasn't that surprising. Before he could reply, she asked him more questions he had troubles finding an answer too.

"Wait, you're alone? Where's Iori-san? Weren't you together this morning?"

Mitsuki looked down, right as Riku and Yamato made their way to them.

"Mitsu, why the hell are you covered in blood? Did you kill a guy?"

"Mitsuki, where's Iori? I have to show him something!"

The excitement from Riku's voice made him want to hear his own heart out and give it as some kind of sacrifice for Iori's sake.

"W-well… Lemme explain…"

His voice was weak, and soon enough, everybody was in the corridor looking at him like he was about to tell them the fate of the world and the meaning of life. When it wasn't the case.

"Our… day turned awry…"

"What do you mean by this, Mitsuki-san?" a visibly concerned Sogo asked.

"You look awfully sad, Mitsuki! What happened?" Nagi added to the stagnant air of questions.

The more he was asked, the harder it was to gather the strength he needed to explain everything, as if that wasn't hard enough before, that was.

He looked away, unable to meet everyone else's eyes. It was almost nauseating to even look at them, actually. That, or the smell of blood on him was starting to get to him.

"We… we got purchased by a guy with a gun…"

Most people gasped. Well, if anyone other than him would had told him the same, he'd have probably reacted in a comparable way. He couldn't exactly blame them.

"Wait, a real guy? With a real gun?" Yamato asked in disbelief. "You're serious, Mitsu?"

"Y-yeah…! I dunno where he got it from, but he had a real gun! He was shooting someone, or something, when we spotted him and he spotted us!"

"Then, you escaped from him, no?" Riku asked with what seemed like a mix of curiosity and worry.

"That's when it goes wrong…"

Tears formed again in his eyes. He still wanted to sob like a child, but he couldn't, not when he was explaining everything to his fellow idol friends.

"We almost outran him, but he caught up to us in our spot, and then…"

"Mitsuki, are you alright?" Nagi preferred to ask, walking right next to his shoulder.

"Nagi-san's right," the manager said. "You look awfully shaken, Mitsuki-san…"

"I… I'm alright… but…"

His voice was starting to choke him, as if it was trapped inside his throat and didn't want to escape from down there. He stared at the ground, trying to gather up the strength to tell them while staying up. He had to be strong.

Iori would hate it if he wasn't strong. If he cried his sacrifice.

"But?" Yamato insisted.

"Give him time!" Sogo almost scolded his older partner. "It's obvious Mitsuki-san isn't doing too well with it."

"Sogo's right," Riku agreed to the previous statement. "We shouldn't rush him!"

"It has to be deep or something," Tamaki commented between two spoons of his pudding, "if Mikki can barely talk."

"Maybe we should postpone it later… Like after the episode of Magical Kokona!" Nagi proposed, going mostly unnoticed.

"Iori-san isn't responding on his phone either…" the manager commented out-loud as she stared at her phone.

"It must had been one hell of a dispute for Iori to refuse walking back to the dorm without Mitsu."

"Heh… Maybe Iorin said something insensitive and Mikki left… It happens, sometimes, with Iorin."

"Then, it must had shaken Mitsuki very hard!"

"Maybe we should wait for Mitsuki-san to tell us, instead of speculating…"

"Poor Mitsuki! Who would had expected him to be split from his own brother!"

"Don't pity me, dammit! You're supposed to worry for Iori!"

It just exploded right out of his mouth. Without any impulse control.

Everybody turned back to him, surprise painted all over their faces. He was panting, fists clenched in absolute frustration with everybody and the chaos around them.

"What?" is all that was heard in the room, from a clearly distraught Nagi.

"You don't get it! This isn't just about Iori and I having a fight or anything like that! It's the opposite!"

They all stared in silence in his direction. He stared at the floor again, sighed and then, finally, finally stringed together the words he had meant to say since the beginning.

"The guy caught up to us… I called for help, while Iori told me he'd 'take care of it'. I didn't know what he meant by that… I still don't, in fact…"

He paused, twisted his tongue seven times inside his month, then resumed.

"I thought the guy was just a really bad shooter, since I didn't get hit at all… But then he ran out of bullets, and I saw that… that…"

He was tearing up again, the memories still fresh inside his mind, flashing before his eyes.

"I saw that Iori had gotten shot in the stomach…"

They all gulped, a deep shade of concern splattering on all of their faces. Yet, no one spoke. No one yelled in a rush.

"A-and I also realized… He had taken a bullet to the shoulder… So I wouldn't get shot in the head… He… he passed out on me as help arrived…"

And there he was. Sobbing intensely, tears streaming down his cheeks, bent over himself.

"I'm sorry! This is all my fault! I couldn't protect Iori!"

"Mitsuki-san…" the manager's voice came in a whisper.

"That's terrible…" Nagi muttered to himself, anger in his voice. He had almost lost in accent in there.

"He's… not dead, right…?" Riku asked, his face distorted.

"I can't say it for sure…! I had to inform you guys before I could go to the hospital check up on him, and… I was unable to look at my phone…"

It was all needles piercing into his chest.

They all went to him.

"It wasn't your fault, Mitsuki-san," Sogo stated calmly. "I'm sure Iori-kun protected you on his own volition."

"Yeah!" Riku added in a self-convincing cheer. "Iori's pretty strong too, so he'll pull it through!"

They weren't wrong, but the guilt was still there, digging its pit deeper and deeper into his stomach by each second passing. He needed to be by his brother's side, and as soon as possible.

"For now, we should worry for Iori… I need to get to the hospital, and…"

"We're going with you, Mitsuki-san!"

Everybody seemed to agree with their manager's decision unanimously. He couldn't really act against it.

"I don't think we'll all be able to enter Iori-kun's room at once, though," Sogo commented.

"That's not important," Yamato responded. "We'll take turns, or something. Your big bro will watch over the ones in the room. In the cafeteria downstairs."

Mitsuki let out a giggle. Not even a nervous one, as he would had expected: a genuine giggle. He really needed the laugh and the support from his fellow idols.

"We're all part of I7, right?" Riku added with a smile. "It's normal for all of us to visit Iori!"

He knew that, deep down, they were all worried too. Perhaps not as much as he did, because his brother instincts were playing in the situation, but he was still very grateful for every one of them, and for their manager too.

They really were his family too, now. His five other brothers, older and younger, who completed the brotherhood he had with Iori, and their dear manager.

"But, huh… You should probably clean yourself before, Mitsuki-san", she told him with a slightly embarrassed expression on her face.

He looked at himself, and remembered he was still soaked in blood from hugging Iori after he had gotten shot.

"Y-you're right! I'll be right back!"

Mitsuki rushed to his room. Quickly seeing Iori's room pained him, but he brushed off the feeling. Wimping over his brother's condition would be piss the later off, especially after having done it specifically for him to be alive and well. He wouldn't make Iori's actions useless and meaningless.

He quickly washed the blood off his hands and changed into a clean hoodie. Looking at his dirty clothes and the diluted reddish-brown stains in the sink were a reminder of which things were actually at stake, but he was somewhat happy to get rid of the stench.

As he walked back to his friends, worry still filling his mind and guilt still boiling down his veins, Mitsuki could only help but wonder what was the worst about the smell of blood still deeply rooted inside his nose: the smell itself, or the fact it belonged to Iori's blood instead of any other from anyone else? Was it the reason why there was even blood on his clothing in the first place?

Too many questions flooded his mind, so he shook them off and resumed his walk.

Everything was already ready for leaving when he came up to his friends. Riku gave him a welcoming hand. He took it without a second thought, entered the car, and let them drive off to a location he never wanted to see again.


	3. A Lot on My Chest to Tell You

The ride to the hospital was awfully quiet on his part. He just let everyone else chatter about whatever topics they had on their minds. Sometimes, he'd reply to their questions about the events that had unfolded merely an hour before, barely lifting his eyes from his mobile phone. It was as if they were glued onto the screen, hanging for a reply, for a call, for a text, anything which would tell him something about his brother's predicament.

Thing was, there was nothing. Nobody was telling him anything. Not even a single notification appeared on his phone. He was beyond frustrated at the lack of words and news.

When they arrived, Mitsuki wasn't feeling so great. His legs wanted to run away, his mind wanted to rush inside the hospital, his stomach was upside-down and his heart was trying to break out of his ribcage. It was as if every part of his body had a different point of view on the situation, and well, he had a tough time keeping it together over there.

Still, he followed the rest of the band inside and to the reception desk. There was a clash between serenity and chaos: the white walls and almost-clean grey floor contrasted with the loud, impatient patients and visitors, all discussing about different things, drowning most of the other sounds from the first floor.

He didn't hear their manager asking for news, or a room number. They had assumed Iori was out of the urgency services, huh. Well, Mitsuki could safely affirm he hadn't thought of that. In fact, while he hadn't expected to actually be dragged into a morgue, he also expected them to tell him it'd take a while. Which they did, in fact.

Everyone in the band, except for him, got surprised when they were told it would still take some time before any of them could see their friends. Obviously, Mitsuki thought, because that wasn't just a small bruise. It was two gunshot wounds to clean, and if he wasn't wrong, the bullets still had to be there. They had to take them off before they could let anyone see Iori, after all, not to mention the potential risks and…

Wait, when did he start thinking like Iori?

He shook off his head and followed the others again. In fact, he had gotten so caught up in his sudden flood of thoughts, he hadn't even heard them discuss the room number, or the delay, nothing in the like. Sometimes, one of the guys would glance at him with a concerned face, something he both knew would happen and something which pissed him off because, once again, he wasn't the one critically injured.

They climbed some stairs, arrived on some floor he didn't even paid attention to the number of, before stopping at some kind of small cafeteria. He overheard the manager remind them someone would tell them when they would be able to visit Iori in his room. Aside from that, he really didn't have the heart to care about much else. It had flooded an hour ago, and yet, it seemed like it had happened ages before. Time was being a nuisance.

Feeling like he was unable to properly participate in the conversation between his friends, Mitsuki simply walked around the floor's open spaces, looking at the grey floor, the white walls, the surroundings because he just didn't want to look at other people. He shouldn't dwell so much on this, because Iori would hate seeing him that way, but on the other hand, he just couldn't face things head-on. It was simply impossible for him to do so, physically and mentally. He just… wasn't truly ready to face things, for once.

The more time went, the less he was ready to face Iori. He didn't want to face his little brother injured in a hospital bed. Who would? No caring sibling would even try imagining the situation he was in, no, the one _they_ were in. It took two to pull off a heroic sacrifice.

Mitsuki peeked through the window, having a full view on the hospital's entrance, its parking places, its small green spaces full of withering grass. It was a warm day of summer, with a bright blue sky, cloudless, sun shining brightly.

But, as far as he was concerned, it could had been hailing clouds and cold outside, because that weather definitely didn't fit the mood he was in.

After looking through the window for a few minutes, he walked back into the maze of white corridors, swearing quietly to himself, and for once, praying everything would be all right, when nothing was right and when he was crossing the despair horizon.

On his way to the group, Mitsuki came across Riku. For someone who had spent most of his childhood in hospitals, he sure didn't seem too down about it. Maybe it was just a façade, a façade he was unable to have on his own self, though.

"Ah, Mitsuki!" he jumped in place before walking quickly towards his senior. "I was looking for you!"

"You were…?"

Man, his voice was so weak, it was almost a joke. He was used to have iron lungs, not the opposite.

"Yeah! We've just been told we could see Iori, but… We thought you should see him first one-on-one."

They both walked their ways towards the band's original spot, where everyone seemed to had waiting for him to come back. The manager made his way towards the second eldest of the unit, careful as not to be too noisy. Judging by everyone else's face, he wasn't sure they needed to keep their volume down.

"Mitsuki-san, Iori-san's room is down this hall", she indicated him as she pointed one of the corridors. "You should recognize his room thanks to its nametag."

"Thanks, Manager. Thanks, everyone."

He left without adding another word. It was perhaps the shortest thanks ever given to someone, especially for how many feelings he had stored inside his heart and how much they were hurting him, but he lacked the words to express them.

His heart was throbbing at a dangerous rhythm, to the point he was tasting his heartbeats in his throat. Stress and anxiety were a thing. They were part of being an idol. But that anxiety, that stress, that worry were a hundred times more powerful than any he had felt before that day. Before these events. They paled in comparison to it, because instead of being made of excitement, they were made of fear, uncertainty and intense concern.

The manager had been right: it didn't take him very long to find Iori's room. It was rather down the corridor, perhaps so people wouldn't notice an idol was in there (who knew what fans were capable of if they had gotten to know he was down for the count and, mostly, _vulnerable_ ). Frankly, that made Mitsuki shiver, because there was no way he was allowing his brother to be that badly endangered.

He faced the door. It was blue, just like the other doors around it and from the corridor. Around him, some people were whispering to themselves of random topics. Maybe someone had recognized him. He hoped his current mood and visible sorrow would discourage anyone from coming up to him and chatter about I7. That wasn't the time, at all. It was merely time for him to face, perhaps, his biggest failure yet.

It wasn't like him to stand in one spot, awkwardly starring at a simple door like it was the gate to his misery. It was more of how… disturbing it was to read the nameplate. He forgot about the number as soon as he saw the nameplate, in fact. Never in his life had he expected to read "Izumi Iori" on a hospital door. Never.

This brought him back to childhood times. He had always been an active child, almost troublesome, so nobody had even gotten surprised when he had broken something, albeit it had worried his family and friends more than once.

But that wasn't Iori's case. He had always been very calm and almost serene, never acting on an impulse, watching carefully everywhere he stepped. There was no way he would injure himself or fall gravely ill. That, simply, wasn't like Iori. Iori was strong, calm and reasonable. There were no ways, until that day, that he would get hospitalized.

And yet, there he was, staring at his brother's hospital room door.

Mitsuki slapped himself on both his cheeks and knocked on the door. No response. He was going anyway. There was no way he wasn't entering, except it had been a big fat "no". He was directly met with the calmest, whitest room ever. In fact, all he heard was a heart monitor and calm breathing. That was entirely different from the previous chaos he had cause in the dorm previously. He made his way, almost wearily, to the bed.

He didn't feel like sitting on the chair next to the bed. It was almost cliché, like the bride checking on her deadly injured husband. Yet, his legs felt like they were about to collapse, so he still sat on it and tried gulping down the comparison he had just gotten in his mind. That was gross. Perhaps, he should had compared it to a parent guarding their ill child, or the opposite way around. Yeah. That That was closer to that idea.

It was weird to admit the current atmosphere was soothing him. Perhaps it was the regular, calm breathing of his unconscious brother being like a lullaby after the initial shock. The beeping monitor kept reminding him that wasn't normal, breaking him from any tranquillity he could have felt. Well, that, and the fact his eyes kept focusing on the blood dripping from its packet to the IV inserted in his sibling's left wrist. It was easier to focus on that when it was exposed and right in front of his nose.

He remained that way for a few minutes, contemplating his own failure in material form, and everything about it, until he heard stirring. He reacted immediately, his focus shifting to his brother's face at the speed of light, as if it was a reflex. It reminded him of how rarely he'd see him wake up in the morning.

Iori's eyes took some time to open, as if light was hurting them, or as if they were weak enough not to open properly. Lost for a few seconds, his gaze wandered around the room, until it reached his brother's look. He must had had worry painted all over his face, because the first thing Iori did upon waking up, was to frown his eyebrows in concern.

That wasn't exactly what he had expected, but he'd roll with it if it meant his brother was alive. Not alive and sound, because that last word wasn't applicable in this situation at all, but alive nonetheless.

"You're finally awake…" he whispered, almost too shaken by his emotions to properly speak.

"Big… big brother…"

Iori's soft tone was just yet another sign of how fragile he was at that very moment. It pained him to see him like that.

"Yeah, that's still me…"

The younger boy looked at his wrist, then at the pocket hovering near it, and attempted a sneer at it.

"What… what happened…?"

"You don't remember?"

Man, he must had lost a lot of blood for him to have such a blackout.

"I do… I meant… What happened after I passed out…?"

Mitsuki gulped, feeling the needles pierce his throat again.

"Help arrived, and you were driven to this hospital… I had to go back to the dorm to inform everyone else though, so I wasn't here until a bit earlier…"

Iori tried to sit up in bed, only to clutch his abdomen and hiss in pain.

"Hey, don't move too much! You're still freshly injured!" Mitsuki blurted out in sudden fright.

"Where is everyone else…? I only see you, big brother…"

"They're waiting to enter. We all thought it was better if we had a private moment, you and me."

He actually hadn't discussed with the others, but as long as Iori didn't know that information, he was free to more or less have that talk with him.

They both waited for him to speak up, so he decided it was time to finally let it off his chest.

"Iori. We need to talk about what happened today."

He didn't reply, simply nodded, even if he still looked down.

"I know why you did that. I know you wanted to protect me, and I owe you my life, but… Never do that again! Please!"

Still no reply. He went on.

"This isn't just about if I mind it or not… Imagine if you had been fatally wounded! You're lucky those bullets didn't hit the wrong spots… I'm saying that for you, Iori. You always make other people go before yourself, and one day, it'll cost you a lot. I don't want that to happen to you."

A simple nod.

"Moreover, I'm your older brother, Iori. I'm supposed to protect you, not the other way around. I thought we had settled that already. I can't let you injure yourself like that for me! And, on that…"

He almost choked over his words.

"I'm sorry, Iori. I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't had let that happen. Because of me, you got severely injured. And that shouldn't be the case."

His brother didn't add anything, at first. He remained silent for a few moments, before looking at Mitsuki again with a pained expression. He couldn't tell if it was physical or emotional pain, or a mix of both.

"This isn't your fault, big brother… I did it of my own will… There's no apology due to me…"

It was very, very weird, to hear and see Iori being so soft, so vulnerable, so… unlike himself.

"Stop apologizing to me, please… It makes me embarrassed…"

Mitsuki just had to spew everything out. There was too much to bear.

"I have to apologize! That shouldn't have happened in the first place! I was supposed to spend a nice day with you, but instead you got shot and could have died of blood loss! That's not what a big brother is supposed to bring you!"

Iori stayed quiet, as taken aback as he physically could be.

"But I can't not scold you too, Iori! You did something completely stupid! You should had protected yourself instead of trying to shield me from bullets! Look at where that got you! That shouldn't have happened either! It wouldn't if I had kept more of an eye on you, though, so I guess it does come back to me… Heh…"

He wanted to cry, but before he could do so, he felt a hand over his head.

"Please, big brother… Don't cry…"

Mitsuki let out a miserable snicker.

"I should be comforting you, not the other way around… but it's always the same with you, Iori. You're the calm one of us, it's always been the case. Just, let me be your shoulder to cry on this time around, okay?"

Inside a hospital room were two brothers, looking at each other in silence. In a way, they didn't need to speak to each other to convey what they were thinking to the other one.

Which is why neither of them answered vocally.


	4. Marigold Honey

Bandmates came by, one by one, but Mitsuki never left the room. He didn't feel like doing so, despite his legs going numb from sitting so long in a chair. It was always… calm. Eerily so, in fact. Nobody had much to say on the situation, it seemed: perhaps, in fact, nobody could truly find a culprit between the two of them, well, if they had tried doing so. It was pretty unclear to him.

The cause of their silence was shrouded in mystery for him. They had no reason to feel guilty, because it was all his fault, so they didn't need conceal their feelings behind a terrible wall of silence. And it was unusual for any of them to be so quiet. Even Riku wasn't smiling brightly, despite the circumstances calling for at least one person trying to cheer everyone up. In fact, even Nagi didn't seem as joyful as he usually was. The anger on his face and in his voice was a mystery to the other Pythagoras member, because… of everyone, Mitsuki probably expected him to try and cheer everyone up.

Their manager was the last one to enter the room. It was as if she wanted to disappear from Earth when she came in, eyes down, hair untidy. Their manager, who was usually always on-point and optimistic about them, was looking down and desperate. But, maybe inside of him, he knew why she refused to look up.

She refused to see Iori in his current state.

Who could blame her? The latter was, undeniably so, badly injured. If his face lacked a major injury, as long as one would ignore its unnatural paleness, he had most of his bandaged chest exposed. And if that wasn't enough to make anyone uncomfortable upon seeing it, the IV right next to him was filled with blood rather than ordinary fluid. Everything in this part of the room would pain anyone to see.

"H-hello… again…" she stuttered, still looking down.

"Manager, do you need to sit down?" Mitsuki asked, getting up from the chair, worried by the sight of her legs shaking under their own weight.

"N-no… I'll be fine…"

"Manager…" Iori metaphorically stepped in. "You can't stay up…"

Had it been any another day, he would had said that with much more confidence and strength, almost like an order, rather than a pensive statement.

Eventually, she caved in and sat down, the older idol standing next to her.

"I… I'm sorry for this!" she started apologizing again.

Mitsuki retained his frustration in, but Iori still grunted. They both had a similar feeling in mind, and it was obvious to the former. Maybe they weren't so different.

"I should had foreseen someone was going to hunt down people, even today! I-I've been told he was a recidivist criminal, I should had told you both about risky zones! I'm so-"

"Stop it, Manager."

Iori clearly attempted at giving her some kind of stink eye, but it didn't work in the slightest when he was so weakened. Instead, he seemed merely bothered by it.

"Your apologies… aren't worth anything right now…"

The young woman's face twisted into sorrow as soon as he said those words, and while, yes, he had a sharp tongue, would his own sibling had expected him to bite back so hard.

"I… I…"

"Iori! You know Manager means well! Be a bit more respectful!"

And he got the stink eye too. The least scary stink eye he had ever gotten, may he add. Yet, Mitsuki sighs, because his brother is partially right.

"Manager, Iori's not wrong… You have nothing to do with it. It's entirely the fault of this psycho! What he meant was that you don't need to apologize. The deed is done anyway…"

He then looks aside, in order not to face them both.

"If it's anyone's fault aside from that guy, it's mine. It was my idea after all, and I was meant to protect my little brother, not the opposite way around. Well, maybe I should have told Iori not to put myself before himself too."

"Mitsuki-san, it's not your fault either! You couldn't have previewed someone would try to kill you both!"

"See…?" Iori added, trying to get the manager's eyes to look into his. "This can't be your fault either for the same reason, so… Stop apologizing… It doesn't serve any use… But, could you please look at me, Manager…?"

She, very slowly, raised her eyes to his level, before gasping. He sighed, probably exasperated by seeing everyone so panicked and pained upon seeing him.

"I'm sure this isn't pleasing to see… But you're all trying to run away from it, including yourself, Manager…" His head got deeper into his pillow. "This isn't anyone's fault here, and I'm tired of hearing everyone apologizing to me… It's like I'm made of glass… I'm not a fragile bunny…"

To be honest, looking at Iori was very painful. Even after staying a couple hours with him in his room, Mitsuki himself still wasn't used to the IV, the weak yet loud breathing, the heart monitor, or just the bandages around what he knew were bullet wounds. Especially the later. He just couldn't stop imagining in a corner of his mind what they actually looked like.

But he was pointing out something true. They had all looked at him like he was a broken statue of glass, and everyone was blaming themselves for the grazes it had taken. The issue was, when it wasn't the fault of anyone (and maybe not his brother's, after all), he was still in a heavily fragile condition because of what had happened to him. Mitsuki hadn't had the heart to tell him his blood loss was more important than he thought, because he thought his sibling would figure it out by himself. It didn't look like it was the case, though.

It wasn't that people were underestimating or putting Iori as a fragile wallflower. It was that he currently _was_ as vulnerable as a porcelain figurine, and was either denying it with fervour, or that he truly didn't realize how important his injuries really were.

"You're right, Iori-san! I'm sorry for running away like that! We don't think you're weak, it's the opposite in fact! You're very strong and brave to have protected Mitsuki-san like that!"

Iori looked at his brother.

"It's not as exceptional… as you all make it out to be…" He sighed. "If you didn't, maybe that big brother wouldn't feel so bad…"

Was that shade thrown at him or legitimate concern? Probably the latter, but it could still be part of the first.

"C'mon, Iori! You took two bullets for me, and yet you still brush it off as nothing?"

Tsumugi jumped on her chair, then quickly turned to him, then back at the younger one.

"That's true, I forgot you got shot twice, Iori-san! That's even more impressive."

"This is no impressive feat… You're all overselling it…"

"Iori, you still got shot! That's big of a deal enough! You're the one downplaying it! Do you know how bad it is?"

"I'm sure of this, big brother…"

"You're aware you lost, like, a lot of blood?"

In a surprise for the older boy, his sibling simply looked at himself and put a hand on his left leg.

"I know that… Maybe more than you do, big brother…"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm surprised you haven't noticed the third bullet…"

Mitsuki's eyes grew wide in an instant.

"What do you mean, a 'third bullet'?! Don't tell me you…"

He gulped, before the realization fully sank in.

"You got shot… three times….?"

He was at loss of words again. Right when he thought he couldn't had been more careless, something new was added to the table. That made sense with the amount of blood on the ground, but still… It didn't change that fact!

The manager simply gasped again and put her hands to her mouth, immensely shocked to the point of losing her face's colours.

"You hid that from me, right…?"

Iori sighed, looking away, yet a slight smile appeared on his lips.

"I denied having it so the shooter would keep trying to shoot my legs instead of any vital part… It's not as important as the two others…"

He looked up, with a saddened face this time around.

"Honestly… I wonder why nobody has blamed me yet for that…"

A quick glance at Mitsuki prevent the latter from speaking up against that statement.

"Big brother, you blamed yourself… for what I should be blamed for… Making you worry wasn't part of my plan… Neither was bringing everyone here with me…"

"What do you mean?!" the older idol responded with anger born of worry. "Iori, you saved my life because I couldn't protect you properly! I have to repeat that yet again?! Cause I'll do!"

The manager quickly excused herself and left in a hurry, sprinting to the door after the quickest bow of all of Japan's history.

Mitsuki crossed his arms, gritting his teeth. It was hard to contain all of his feelings, yet he couldn't unleash them at the moment. He'd just have to keep all that bottled up somewhere. Great. Just, great.

"And this isn't a question of being better than me at everything and anything! It's a question of life and death! What if you had been more gravely injured?! Those bullets could have pierced your lungs or your heart! I can't let that go buy, but on the other hand, do you really expect us to blame you for this?!"

"You're right… I worried everyone when it wasn't necessary… It'll be bad for the group in general too… Since we'll be one down for a while… Unless…"

"Don't you even dare!"

"Big brother, we don't have much time… I can't stay out of commission for too long… Everyone's just overestimating my wounds…"

His voice was losing most of its conviction. It wasn't him not to be reasonable. Something was very, very wrong.

He just got a grunt back.

"I can't let you do that! You're only gonna make it worse if you overdo it! I know, we're idols, we're public most of the time and can't stay MIA for very long, but that's not a reason to endanger yourself again!"

Mitsuki's voice halted. Nasty visions of what could be flooded his mind, all filled with blood on stage and terrified friends.

"And, like, Iori, you worried everyone enough. You'll not take it easy even if you get told, I'm sure you'll sneak your way to the manager anyway. So, just, stay calm for a bit, okay? Don't put more pressure on us."

He was being a bit mean to his brother, but sometimes, it felt like he had to drill stuff through Iori's skull for him to actually listen and stop being stubborn. He wasn't a bad kid, quite the contrary, but he was convinced he had a very important role to play all the time which nobody else could cover for him.

And, well, that was wrong, because everybody could cover up for him as his friends.

Iori didn't respond, much to his surprise. He was expecting his brother to bite back, tell him how everyone was important for the team, and how he could manage healing and I7 at the same time with no difficulty. Would had it been a sprained ankle, a twisted wrist, or a cold, Mitsuki would had believed him, yet kept an eye out just-in-case. But that wasn't the case. It was on another level altogether.

"You're right, big brother… I can't do much at the moment that requires moving around… but I can still help elsewhere… Please tell the manager I need to talk to her as soon as possible…"

Sighs.

"That… wasn't what I meant." That was going to be harder than he had thought. "I meant, you're more or less stuck here for a week or so. I doubt the manager'll allow you to do anything which could tire you out. I know you want to be useful and hate feeling left out and useless, but please, just let us manage everything while you recover, okay? We'll keep you aware of everything we decide and do."

Yeah, maybe it would had been better to tell him that after he had actually decided of so with the entire team. But if he didn't have trust in I7, who could he believe in?

Mitsuki knew, deep down, that it wasn't his words failing to reach his brother. It was the latter's uncertainties he was too weakened to bottle up anymore: despite his sharp tongue and seeming like he'd always say what he had on his mind no matter how improper and rude it was, he had his insecurities he kept hidden like everyone.

But that was as long as Iori had the strength to do so. To be fair, Mitsuki himself wasn't used to seeing these doubts reaching the surface anymore: it had been something close to a decade since Iori had let himself express such so freely. After all, he had only failed once in his life, so of course he never had to make amends for anything and express how much he wanted to be seen as "cool" and "mature" when he was, in fact, a seventeen-year old teenager who loved cute things and would maybe accept to watch a magical girl show with Nagi had he not accepted some side quests nobody else knew about.

In front of the lack of reply, Mitsuki felt like he had to fill in the blanks. Maybe because he was still terrified his brother would do something stupid or dangerous out of duty feelings and guilt.

"Iori. Nobody's asking you to retire or even take a long hiatus from idol business! We're just asking you to remain calm and on stand-by until you're back in shape, okay? Not hard! I'm sure you can understand that, right? You're a very clever boy, you don't need me to explain stuff to you! Sometimes, it's as if you were the big brother, in fact…"

His eyes darkened as he dropped his comforting smile.

"Yeah, you're the older brother of us two, aren't you, Iori…? It may be right that way, because that way, the big brother took the bullet for the little brother…"

That was his own anchor into the sea of insecurities. He… just wasn't sure if Iori was aware of all of this going through his mind. After all, Mitsuki was pretty bad at expressing his own uncertainties, because it was better to be happy and upbeat rather than sulking on how he felt like he was still an immature little boy compared to his younger sibling.

He wasn't pretending. He was legitimately happy most of the time, but nothing helped erasing the disturbing, gut-wrenching feeling of being the small member of a two-way brotherhood of which he was supposed to be the elder. So, whenever he looked at Iori, a part of him always itched to finally spit at him to be the little brother he was meant to be, instead of being so mature!

"Big brother… Why are you saying this…?" is all Iori asked, a clearly pained expression on his face.

And before he knew it, Mitsuki was in an embrace he didn't want at the moment. One which shouldn't had been possible, had all laws and anything he had told before mattered.

"Iori… W-why…?" he sobbed, unable to get a proper reply out.

"I know I shouldn't be up, but… How do you want me to do nothing… when you're so sad…?"

This was, perhaps, the cutest thing he had ever told him since they were children.

"Go back to bed, y-you idiot… You're not fixing a-anything by doing that…"

And yet, Mitsuki found shelter in his brother's chest. Hearing this familiar heartbeat felt like a reinsurance he didn't know he needed before that moment. His brother was alive. Not well, but alive, and well enough to be there for him even as he shouldn't had been the helper. That was his job. That was his duty. He wasn't filling it.

But he was also sad and had pretended all afternoon long to be a stable pillar when, in actuality, all he was, was a crying mess of a brother who was just worried sick for his younger sibling. He had gotten Iori's blood on his hands and clothes, and even as his face was right next to the bandages covering up wounds created to protect his life, he couldn't do anything much than worry. Because the future was always uncertain, and except for looking at Zero, fulfilling his dream of being an idol and wishing his brother could find his own dream for the latter's own good (it was good for nobody to depend on their sibling), Mitsuki didn't know anything of the future and what he wanted to do with it.

So all he did was to stay buried, even if he should had been responsible and give Iori his well-deserved and mandatory rest.

"That's exactly why you're the older brother of us two, y'know, Iori… It should be the other way around…"

"I don't see how that matters in anything… You're still my older brother…"

Iori sighed.

"I only want one thing… and that's for you to be happy, big brother… I don't care about being calmer or more mature than you…"

"Never change, Iori, please…"

Mitsuki found himself hugging back, before hearing a slight hiss of pain. He pulled back in a rush.

"Wait, I hurt you, no?!" he asked in a hurry.

His brother was softly wrapping his chest in his arms, but somehow, a small smile was to be found on his face.

"It's minor, really… I'm just glad you're better…"

The older idol found himself puffing at this, amused.

"You're aware that should be the other way around, right? I should be telling you that, not the opposite way around. May I add, it's bedtime for you, Iori. The others will probably leave this hospital soon too."

"I'll do, big brother."

Mitsuki still gave one last pat on the head to his now-laying brother.

"I'll come visit you tomorrow, and I'm sure the others too. Have a good night, and don't worry for any of us, okay? We'll think of you back at the dorm."

With shyer-than-usual goodbyes returned to him, he left the room, the corridor, joined the others, and they all left the hospital.

The future was uncertain, but he was a bit more hopeful than when he first arrived there.


	5. Tell Me What Makes You So Angry

Sunday was filled with everything Mitsuki usually loved: practice, chatting with everyone else, imagining what next big thing they could tackle on next, jokes, laughs all around… Except, this time, this didn't have the intended effect.

It felt like something was missing, something which made the entire machine function weirdly. It felt incomplete, and it seemed to get to everyone around him too. Nobody was really smiling: even if everything would be alright, worry was still eating them away like rust gains iron little by little until it's unusable.

Really, when did he start thinking like him?

Their active day was cut short, needless to say. Even the manager wasn't fully herself: she would zone out from time to time, eyes unfocused, nervous ticks all over her hand gestures and lip bites. Mitsuki couldn't recall one single reference to Magical Kokona in the entire day. He couldn't even recall Tamaki mentioning the name of his favourite pudding brand from morning to afternoon. Even Riku seemed saddened by everything, despite his carefree nature.

Well, Mitsuki was the mood maker, after all. That was his secret talent, if Tamaki's was dancing, Riku's singing, Yamato's acting, Sougo's composure, Nagi's natural charisma and charm, and Iori's… Iori's… _His_ perfection in every domain and fast mastering of anything he was tasked too. So, of course, if he was down, then it was unlikely any of them could help the situation be any happier. If only he could bring himself to cheer up…

By the middle of the afternoon, everyone was back in their rooms. Before going in his, Mitsuki saw Tamaki do his homework all on his own, even if he was sulking, scratching his head for answers. Iori had done his best to make Tamaki a good, serious student who could do things on his own and, in a way, it somehow worked in a way: he was indeed doing his homework without Iori being right behind him to force him, or at least pressure him, to do so. The effectiveness of such an autonomy was yet to be seen: clearly, he was sadder than focused on his papers, which Mitsuki could only attribute to the lack of Iori's presence around the dorm and the worry which was eating everyone inside.

He wished he had something to cheer Tamaki up, but nothing came to his mind, so he resumed walking to his room.

Mitsuki crashed into bed as soon as he was alone in there. For some reason, he felt immensely tired. Was that what they meant by "taking a toll on oneself"? It was as if the bad atmosphere had gotten to him physically. Maybe it was because the events of the day before had still flashed in his mind when he had tried to sleep on the night before. He hadn't gotten much sleep, and that was truly affecting him. For once in his life, he felt exhausted and breathless.

Well, perhaps that was a sign he needed to prevent that kind of events to happen again. Another of these, that was, because seeing Iori drenched in his own blood was already _far_ than enough. Damn, he really couldn't get over seeing that blood all over the place, couldn't he? It was like a weird, dark obsession he didn't want to stick around, but it did anyway. It was burnt inside his mind.

Add that to the list of reasons why he should do his best to prevent those situations from happening again.

His mind was just filled with worries and negative thoughts, like black clouds. He wanted to find his usual, characteristic optimism and pertness. Motivate everyone to work hard as always, even without…

No, that wasn't working out. All he wanted to do was run to the hospital and stay by Iori's side, because he missed his presence so goddamn much. He thought that he could cope with it, no problem, he couldn't be jealous of his brother if the latter wasn't there, right?

 **No**.

It was all wrong. He needed to be by Iori if he sensed his brother was in danger. It was a bit too late to realize that, as he was stuck there until the time the manager was finished with her paperwork to drive them to the hospital.

Until then, he was stuck doing God-knows-what when everybody else was sulking as bad as he was. Well, maybe less, because it wasn't their sibling they were affected by. Their baby sibling they cherished with more than they thought they had.

After a not-as-long-as-he-perceived-it-to-be period of time, a knock broke him out of his boredom-induced daze. The "yes" he replied was more in a reflex than in a true will to be seen like this. Riku pointed his head in the room, a curious yet concerned expression on his face.

"Mitsuki, can I come in?" he asked, looking around the room until his eyes met with his senior.

"Yeah, sure…"

Riku closed the door behind him, quietly, and made his way to the bed. He sat next to the other idol, who had taken a more proper position for small talk. The latter was wondering about why Riku wanted to talk to him in particular: wasn't he closer to…

Oh, that was right. Riku was the closest to _Iori_. Of course he would feel lonely and wouldn't go to his best friend in the unit! That didn't help feel the goddamn void he couldn't erase from his heart, and that despite the situation which would be all right and fine in the end. It was always fine in the end. It was just hard to convince himself of so this time.

"You need something, Riku?"

"Huh, not really, but… Well, I guess I have to ask you about Iori and what happened yesterday…"

Oh, that was just great. Right as he tried to erase his worries for a bit, just to find some sleep and recover some capacity to cheer everyone even a little bit, he would dive right in.

"I don't know what more I can tell you, though… I've told everyone everything yesterday before we went to the hospital. I'm really not sure what more you want from me…"

"Mitsuki, I'm sure there's something else to it," he replied, with a rare seriousness. "When I talked with Iori yesterday, he was worried for you, and I've never seen him express it so openly! There must had been something, right?"

"Yeah, I know it's weird how Iori's just so open all of a sudden. Shows how weak he is right now, he'd keep his cool face usually…"

Riku sighed and looked at the ground. His lack of any enthusiasm and an acutely aware vision on the situation were just another sign that the day before had changed things a lot.

"What exactly happened between the two of you, yesterday? I could feel Iori was very sad, and you're obviously sad too… Even the manager seemed miserable yesterday, and today too! Something has to be wrong!"

He sighed.

"I miss Iori already… He often makes fun of me, but he's a nice guy, and it's not the same when he's not here…"

"Who doesn't? It's like everyone's gloomy today. Heh, even I'm sad…"

None of their faces cheered up, even by a little.

"You think the manager'd allow us to go visit Iori…?" Riku asked, looking in front of him.

"I dunno… We're supposed to be working after all, it's just that nobody's motivated to do any of that…"

"Hey, Mitsuki… I was wondering about something else…"

"Hmm? What is it?"

"Who are you angry against?"

Now that was a very surprising question.

"What do you mean, Riku? Where are you going with that?"

"I talked about it with Iori yesterday. He said how weird it was for you to be angry at either yourself or him, but not at the shooter. And, on second thought… He was right, it's weird."

Mitsuki let out somewhat of an amused scoff.

"Of course I'm angry at that psycho! Who wouldn't?! He almost killed both my brother and me! But, as much as I want to punch his goddamn face," he gritted his teeth as not to spew out all the insults he had in his personal dictionary, "it wouldn't be any useful. He's already in jail."

"So, you just decided to be angry at yourself? That's a bit strange if you ask me…"

"It's subtler than that. I'm not angry at myself for the same reasons I'm angry at that dick or at Iori. I'm angry at myself because I let it all happen in front of my eyes. That's it. That's… That's it."

"It's really just that? You don't seem so sure, Mitsuki…"

He scoffed again, this time in frustration. Against what, he wasn't sure. Himself? Riku's naiveté? Iori? The guy? Who knew anymore.

"I don't know if you'd understand that, Riku… I know you're very attached to your brother, but you're still the younger one, right?"

"Yeah, Ten-nii always protected me before… Oh, wait. That's about protection?"

"Bullseye. I'm angry at myself because I failed to protect Iori. As his older brother, that's my duty, you know? I'm meant to protect him from harm as much as I can. And, I failed. That's not big news anymore. That's why I'm so angry."

Riku looked away.

"That's why Iori didn't want you to be angry…"

Mitsuki jumped in place and bolted his head to his younger friend.

"He told you that?!"

"Yeah, he told me something like this… How you shouldn't be angry as much as you were. I thought it was because you were angry at Iori… but that wasn't what he meant, right? He meant that because you're frustrated at yourself!"

Heh, he was cleverer and a bit more receptive than Mitsuki had thought.

"Iori wouldn't want to see me like that, I know. But on the other hand… I don't think you could blame any older sibling from feeling that way when they could had prevented the situation."

Wait. That was wrong, in a way.

"No, that's not it…"

Riku was puzzled, now entirely focused on his senior's face.

"Wait, what?"

"I just realized I'm also angry because I know it would had been worse if Iori hadn't done what he did. I'd have died, in fact. Maybe twice, who knows, and that's all because he managed to prevent it with his own self. And I hate that!"

"That's his shoulder wound, right?"

"Yeah! I wish I wasn't that damn useless compared to Iori! When I couldn't prevent him from taking any bullet in a dangerous zone because I'm like the smallest thing ever, he was able to take the bullet which would had killed me on the spot!"

A soft smile appeared on Riku's mouth.

"Mitsuki, you're not useless, even compared to Iori! Yeah, sure, he took that bullet for you, but you still managed to save him!"

"What do you mean?! I didn't save him from anything! He got shot because of me! Because I couldn't protect him!"

"Yeah, but you still called for an ambulance, right?"

Mitsuki just blinked in surprise, completely stopped all of a sudden.

"If you hadn't had the reflex to turn around and brought Iori and you in a safer place, and then called for emergency… I don't want to know what would have happened, but I'm sure it'd be worse than the current situation!"

It all flashed inside the older brother's mind. What if… what if Iori had been all alone in this situation? Iori didn't have his rapid reflexes nor his capacity to react quickly if the situation called for it. Iori'd have stood there and considered his options, a lot, too much. And even if he had survived getting shot, like he had done… There'd had been nobody to call for an ambulance, to bring him somewhere he could be saved.

There had been nobody around, when they had gotten trapped by their own idea. If Iori had went there, as quickly as he could, and as good as he was at dodging bullets… He'd had been targeted by another either in the head or in the heart by a shooter who would had reached him or passed away because of blood loss. In short, he'd had died.

And, that was terrifying, but it did help put everything in perspective. So he gulped.

"You... Iori told you about that…?"

"Not exactly like that, but he said he was thankful for you to had been there, so I've just thought about it a lot… And I think I know where he was coming from. You saved Iori, Mitsuki! You shouldn't be so frustrated with yourself!"

Mitsuki just bowed his head down, almost silently giggling to himself.

"What's wrong?" Riku asked him, with some worry in his voice.

"Hahaha… That's Iori for you… He thought about all the possible outcomes and realized it wasn't so bad before I could. Usually it's the opposite way around."

He rose his head again, a pained relief washed all over his face.

"Riku, thanks a lot. You made me realize that too."

"I-it's nothing! Iori's the one who told me all this, and to tell you if you started sulking! I didn't do much!"

A short arm rolled itself around his shoulder, as Mitsuki grinned.

"Don't humble yourself like that! You did great!"

For the first time in two days, he laughed in happiness.

Mitsuki was back facing the hospital door. Nothing had changed: it was the same people in the halls, the same number, the same nameplate. It still felt cold, intimidating and downright eerie to be there, but it was less stressful than on the day before. He knocked with more confidence, and this time, he actually got back a "yes" from a familiar voice.

The room was as cold and impersonal as before, if not for a few details. There were flowers in a vase next to the bed, which were unfamiliar to him: he didn't remember anyone bringing any flowers in this room, and he had been there for the entire time, right? That was weird, but perhaps Iori had an answer to his questions.

After a short exchange of hellos, he sat down on the chair which was still sitting next to the bed, only to notice there was a second one right next to it… Weird. He remembered being up next to their manager when they were three inside the room, on the day before. It was as if someone else had gotten knowledge of the situation, despite the fact Takanashi Productions had made sure there were no leak of the situation, if not just not to bother the other patients.

"You're feeling any better than yesterday?" got a quick, simple, crystal-clear reply which let nothing hidden: a bit, still sore over the zones where he had been shot, a feeling of physical weakness, boredom of an impersonal bedroom and the medical staff being much more comfortable with his bandages than anyone who had visited him.

"Hey, Iori… Can I ask you something?"

"What's on your mind, big brother?"

"I don't remember anyone giving you flowers, yesterday. We all rushed in here as soon as we were able to, so nobody had gotten the time to buy you some. Who gave these to you?"

"Mom and Dad…"

"M-mom and D-dad?!"

It wasn't that Mitsuki was that surprised. The manager had probably called them in the evening before. It was just… weird to think he hadn't been aware of it and, to be honest, he was downright terrified of what his parents were going to tell him would they find each other. After all, he had gotten his baby brother in danger (forgetting Iori was seventeen, almost conveniently, and had been able to take his own decisions since he attended elementary school).

That explained the presence of a second chair, though. They had probably visited him after their workday or during a small break and were tired.

"What did they tell you about?"

"They asked me if I was okay, and how it happened… Seems like Manager didn't explain everything to them…"

"Of course she didn't! You got shot, and no parent wants to know how their kid got shot in details! I'm surprised they haven't called me about that yet…"

"I told them not to… that you were busy with everything else…"

"Iori, you shouldn't do that! What if they had important stuff to tell me about?!"

Instead of getting a reply about the matter, he got something else entirely.

"Did Nanase-san tell you about what I wanted him to…?"

"Asking me why I was angry and stuff? Yeah, he did. Right before we arrived here, in fact."

"That's good…"

"That means… We have stuff to talk about again, Iori."

"Right…"

Mitsuki settled in the chair, crossing his arms, because he needed to be imposing this time.

"I guess you didn't get why I was angry, or at what. I'm sure you know by now I'm angry at the guy, you and myself, but maybe you didn't get why the last part exactly. At least, Riku didn't, so I explained it to him. However, talking about it with Riku helped me understand something, and that I wasn't as much as fault as I thought I was. So…"

He smiled gently.

"Let's brush that aside for now, okay? I'm sure we can talk about all of this deep stuff when you'll be out of here and running. Just recover, okay? You seemed a bit tired before too, so it'll be the perfect chance for you to rest."

He faked surprise, before putting his hands into his backpack.

"I almost forgot! I've got you something while coming here."

"You did…?"

He got a bunny-shaped plushie. To be fair, he had actually bought it a while ago: he hoped Iori would had somehow forgotten today was a Sunday.

"Here you go!"

The initial surprise and embarrassment gave place to a joy he couldn't really hide from his brother. Thanks ensued very quickly.


	6. Boring Days, Boring Daze

School was boring. It had always been boring, because it wasn't about something which interested him personally. Maths and Japanese paled in comparison to King Pudding. It was a bit funnier when Iorin was around, because at least there was someone he could talk to, and always try snuggling replies from when, in actuality, Iori always refused to tell him whatever he hadn't paid attention to.

But it was fun to try doing it anyway, and it was costing less energy than listening in class anyway. So, he just continued doing that, even if it didn't serve much use. It helped time go buy more quickly when nothing else would help it but doodle King Puddings on his copybooks' margins.

However, that wasn't the case today, and going back to school was a shock to Tamaki.

First of all, there was no Iorin in their communal living room. No "prepare yourself for school in time, Yotsuba-san". No waking up earlier than before. Nobody to joke about how Iorin seemed to be one of the elder members of the band but was actually from the youngest ones.

If that wasn't weird in itself, he had to walk to school alone. He used to do that before he had joined I7, but that seemed like a very long time ago, so it felt like he was rediscovering being alone. He didn't like the feeling at all, and he just couldn't brush it off like he wanted to do, because it came coming back.

The classroom felt even lonelier somehow. Despite some of his classmates being already seated, Tamaki was more alone than ever, and that meant bored to. If there was no Iorin to talk to about whatever was going through his mind, even if most of the time it was silence because they didn't share like half of their interests, it still felt better than whatever the hell that situation did. It was cold, almost as cold as Iorin's usual remarks, but without the Iorin charm to it. Because, apparently such a thing existed. And being all alone in that classroom just proved it did.

Bored beyond his mind, he just got out his phone from his pocket and a copybook of the class he was attending once the teacher would be there and started playing Pudding Jump to keep himself from falling asleep.

"Yotsuba-kun?" a voice called out for him on his right.

Rising his eyes from his phone screen, he spotted a familiar girl of his class with short, limiest blond hair whose green eyes were looking at him with an expression he couldn't decide was upset or worried, or maybe both. Who knew.

"Oh, it's Midorin… Whaddya want?"

"I dunno, tell you good morning or something. You weren't reacting when I was telling you so earlier."

"I didn't. Sorry, I guess."

She crossed her arms and pouted.

"You're completely outta it today! You're always a bit out there, but man, today takes the cake."

Midorin was weird, because she wasn't a fan of them. She was just a random girl who had come up to Iorin and him when they first transferred to tour them around. When Iorin had asked her if she was doing that to get closer to the band, she had just asked "what band?". She didn't care. That felt nice, because fans were always potentially mean.

"Maybe… I guess you're right, today's so weird…"

Midorin eyed at the seat in front of him. It was empty, yet neat and in order.

"By the way, you know what happened to Izumi-kun? It's not like him to be missing, at all."

Oh no. That was the dreadful question he didn't want to reply to.

"He just couldn't come to class. That's it, really…"

Her quirked eyebrows and the moves her lips made just screamed doubt.

"Yeah, sure. Izumi-kun, the guy who does everything perfectly, who hasn't missed class yet despite a case of strep throat because he had some concert in the rain or something sometime ago, just couldn't come to class. There must be something else to it, if you ask me."

Urgh, she knew them too well, despite not being a fan. She was such a chore.

"I can't tell you, Midorin. It's top secret stuff. I'm gonna get scolded if I tell you. So I won't tell you."

"Even in exchange for some King Pudding?"

Now she was talking, but he couldn't tell her.

"Nope. Top secret stuff. Iorin wouldn't want me to worry someone else again anyway."

Midorin's face twisted, losing the confident expression and glaze for a much more… concerned look.

"Wait, what? What do you mean by that? I thought Ainana wasn't too shy about its members' private lives. I mean, not as much as TRIGGER or whatever their name is who according to a friend doesn't really mind selling some smexy stories, but still. You get what I mean."

Her face got suddenly close to his.

"That means something's really wrong with Izumi-kun. There's no need to be a detective or anything like that to understand this is all suspicious. Not to mention you're an awful liar, Yotsuba-kun."

He grunted at the shade thrown his way.

"Shut up. I can't tell you. That's it."

But Midorin's face wasn't of someone pissed, or even a groupie's when she could get some confidential information. It looked… worried. Like when everyone was worried for So-chan, or when they all got worried for Iorin. After some moments without a response, she just shrugged it off and went to her seat: the table on Iorin's right, on the front row.

Tamaki didn't want to ask that.

He really didn't, but he had also been unable to focus properly on the lesson, so he was doomed to find another source to bring Iorin the homework to do. That was he was insisting on when they were chatting through Rabbit Chat.

There was only one person he could think of who wouldn't absolutely try to get Iorin's hospital room number from him. And yet, they were also the one he didn't want to pick, because they were just suspicious and weird and So-chan had told him to be careful.

"Midorin?" he asked from behind her back, right as they were both cleaning up the room. At least, they were alone.

"Yeah? What's up?" she asked back as she cleaned the blackboard.

"You listened to today's class, right?"

Midorin turned around, facing him, a curious expression on her face.

"As usual, of course. Why?"

"I need to know the homework and classes of today."

She looked up, as if she was trying to find some hidden meaning to something.

"From me? You don't have those? I don't remember you going out of the class at any time today, not even for your idol stuff."

"W-well… I just need it! And I didn't follow the class cause I couldn't focus on it!"

Her face softened after its initial shock. She went to her bag and got out some copybooks and sheets from it. She then handed them up to him.

"Here you go. Tell Izumi-kun it ain't the same without him. I need my concurrence, y'know?"

Eternal second behind Iorin's perfection. A light smile accompanied her words.

He took the copybooks and thanked her quickly.

Day three. It had been three days, and yet, he was still lying in bed as if he was a dying child, when he wasn't. According to what he had heard from the doctors and nurses which had came in and out all day long, he was recovering steadily, and that even if he had attempted to walk with an injured leg on the day it had been shot.

But honestly, even if he was usually as lawful as possible, Iori couldn't had cared less about breaking some kind of health rule. He'd just respect all the other ones, even if it meant lying in bed in complete boredom, would it not be for the laptop his friends had graciously brought him. Rabbit Chat was a way to fill in for an incredibly boring day.

At first, Iori had thought it could be a great occasion to look back on I7, how far it had come since they first came together, and where it should go next. That was the other reason why he was so grateful to have his laptop on hand and be able to do something other than looking at the ceiling waiting for someone to come in and speak to him about whatever they wanted to tell him about.

However, things weren't going in that direction. He wasn't kept aware of most of what was happening at I7. Maybe nothing was happening. After all, Yotsuba had been clear enough on that point: it was boring. His brother was speaking of how everyone seemed down. Even the manager lacked her usual cheerfulness. Maybe it was just that there was nothing to preview.

Nothing he didn't have to wait for, in short.

A knock on his door prevented him from drifting to the lands of daydreaming and escapism completely. Surprised, he got up a bit too quickly, and his side reminded him of why he was in this hospital in the first place. He muffled the pain before replying a surprised "yes?".

Yotsuba made his way into the room, some papers in his hands, which he would guess were homework and lessons. He was just out of school: he hadn't even gone back to the dorm to change from his uniform to casual clothes. Maybe it was because the hospital was closer to the school than the dorm was.

"Good afternoon, Yotsuba-san…" he greeted his classmate.

His voice was still too weak to his state. He was just so weak. There was no use trying to get everyone to look at him as if everything was okay: he felt like broken glass trying to repair itself. It'd happen someday: it was just taking a lot of time he could had spent on anything else but staying in bed and thinking about anything which crossed his mind.

"Hi Iorin…"

Yotsuba eventually reached the bed, but didn't sit down, much to Iori's surprise. Perhaps he was planning on leaving pretty early. After all, a hospital room was boring, when you thought about it. There wasn't much he could do in there.

He handed him the copybooks, and a quick look through them revealed instantly he wasn't reading Yotsuba's handwriting. However, it was familiar, but it was neater than anything Yotsuba could ever scribble. Well, it wasn't neat to begin with, but it was still more easily readable and less filled with doodles.

"This isn't yours, right…?" he wondered aloud.

"Nah, it's Midorin's… I didn't take notes today," the younger boy replied, with such a flat tone it was clear it wasn't annoying him in the slightest.

"I told you to pay attention to class… Anyway… Thank you… I'll have to thank Kimidori-san for this later too…"

"It's your fault if I haven't listened in class, Iorin…" Yotsuba replied, pouting.

"What do you mean…?"

Usual Yotsuba. Unable to express what he thinks in a tangible manner at first.

"I mean, it's so weird not to have you around, Iorin! I couldn't focus cause it was so weird! Even Midorin asked where you were and stuff, it was very weird!"

He had to make sure of something.

"Did you tell Kimidori-san about anything…?"

Sei Kimidori, second student overall of their class, right behind him. The weirdest one they'd met since joining I7: she didn't care for them as idols, because she didn't care about idols. Some rumours said she had some of their songs on her phone: she didn't know it was from them. But it was all rumours, and Iori didn't believe in rumours if they were unproven.

Kimidori was, in short, a weird specimen. She was, as such, suspicious by default: who knew if she wasn't actually an obsessive fan who just hid her game very well? She had come up to them very early on after they had transferred, and always denied being their fan. Maybe in an attempt to befriend them? She was strange. She was suspicious.

But if she helped him not miss much on schoolwork, then he'd thank her.

"No, I didn't. She asked me what happened to you, but I didn't say anything, cause you don't want to worry others or something."

That wasn't the reason why he was so insistent on preventing leaks.

"If you want… In any case, it's good you've respected that… I don't exactly want everyone else to know what happened Saturday…"

"But Midorin's gonna ask me about you tomorrow again, right?"

"Just tell I'll be fine… She can't know about this…"

The small smile on his face was trying to reassure his friend.

"Iorin, please recover quickly… Everyone's sad cause you're not here… And school's lonely, so… Come back soon!"

He was cute.

"I'll do…"


	7. A Gap Shrouded in Black Clouds

Mitsuki looked at himself in the mirror, for the first time in what seemed to be ages. It had only been a couple days. He looked just like he imagined himself: tired, worried, and most of all, like he hadn't really paid attention to what he even looked like to other people in a couple days. That wasn't professional, he'd say if he channelled his internal Iori.

Today was a new day, though, and he couldn't allow himself to sink so down when they had a unit to maintain and fans to please. Iori would hate to see him so down, right? He had to be cheerful, he had to be happy, he had to make the mood.

Geez… He really was thinking like Iori when the latter wasn't there to do so, wasn't he?

Honestly, he hated seeing himself like that. Deep in his heart, he just wanted to be carefree. Just do what he loved: being an idol, make people happy just like Zero made him happy, and enjoy a good time with his friends. It was probably selfish of him to wish such a thing though, when he was the second eldest of I7 and the older brother of an injured boy. Why couldn't he cheer himself up, for goodness's sake?!

But he had responsibilities to take care of, like a show he hadn't attended in what seemed like a while when he had just missed two evenings. Maybe three, and even then, evenings were the show had just gone on a short hiatus. Nobody had managed to convince him to let go of Iori's hand whenever it was time to go to the studio to shoot it.

Tonight, he was attending the show like everyone else did. Well, everyone but Iori, for… obvious reasons. He hadn't read any social media of his in the last three days and knowing there was an "ask us anything" section to the night show, he couldn't help but be nervous about it. He didn't know what the fans could be wondering about at this precise moment. And perhaps it was the worst: he'd have to improvise.

It could be fun, though, he then thought as he tried to fix his face from looking tired to looking happy and satisfied. Better cover up everything until there was a public statement by the agency about everything. It was made even stronger of an obligation someone had slipped under his door: if ever asked about Iori, reply it's a hiatus which will be explained later. Thanks. No signature he could identify.

They were now on stage, live, sitting in their usual spots in front of an energic Mr Shimooka who was still as dynamic as ever. Near them, an audience made out of fans, who were rather quiet for once. That was… weird, to be honest. Everything was weird about this show, from the meek audience to the empty seventh seat. He hated that. He hated that feeling of wrongness rising in his chest.

It started as normal, though. Their gap had gone unnoticed, or at least, didn't get mentioned. It was all about their incoming stuff, and current news: Nagi getting more modelling jobs, Yamato enjoying some of that drama fame, questions about said modelling jobs and fame, and some silly facts about how Riku's fans saw him. More MEZZO" being in a secret relationship jokes. Usual business, except he was rather quiet. Too quiet, to his taste, but he never knew what to say to anything.

Then the questions from the fans came in, and it was when everything went south.

The first question was about MEZZO" and their future plans, sure enough, but as soon as the second one rolled around, it was when it all went down. Went in the direction he didn't want it to go. But of course it wouldn't be avoidable. He couldn't dodge the situation forever.

"So… Would you mind telling your fans why you had to cancel the show for the last days? They deserve to know!" Mr Shimooka's voice screamed cheerfully in the room, contrasting with the sudden drop in mood everyone was experiencing.

Mitsuki decided to go forward anyway.

"Well… We had some technical issues! It's unfortunate, haha. We're very sorry for that, everyone!"

And with that, he turned to the audience and bowed to them in apology. To his relief, everyone followed through with his half-lies half-truths.

"I see, I see!" Mr Shimooka reacted in lieu of the audience. "Let's hope these issues don't happen again!"

He pulled out another question next, and this time, it was even worse to dodge.

"This question seems to be mainly targeted at Mitsuki-kun," the showrunner stated as he read through, "but I think everyone could reply to it. A lot of fans want to know why Iori-kun isn't here with you tonight."

A short silence ensued, before he resumed talking.

"That's right, Iori-kun isn't with you tonight… I think everyone in the audience is curious as to why, guys, don't you think?"

They all looked at each other awkwardly, trying their best to hide the fact that they, in fact, had no idea what to reply to that because the truth was much darker than what they could say in the open by themselves like that.

"Huh…" Mitsuki trailed off as an answer, focused on making the bill he had received as close to the truth as possible. "Iori's on hiatus for now. He'd probably mad at us if we told you why exactly!"

He heard a sigh of relief from some of them. If he hadn't faked a laugh, he'd have sighed too.

Mr Shimooka's face distorted for a moment before he stared right at Mitsuki again.

"We've just gotten another very asked question for your fans…" His voice trailed off, as if trying to build up suspense. All it built up within the six members of I7 was anxiety. "There is a rumour Iori-kun's in the hospital right now. Can you confirm it?"

Mitsuki's face lost all its colours.

How? How?! How did anyone got to know that was the case?! How did it slip…? Had someone spotted Iori's bedroom nameplate? This was terrible, terrible, terrible…

"What makes you think that?" Yamato responded back in a question trying to sound surprised, when the small trembling in his voice was betraying them all.

"Oh…" Sogo went next in an attempt to calm the wonderings down. "It seems like Iori-san has worried everyone more than we expected. We can confirm this rumour to being false, though."

" _Yes_!" Nagi interjected with an obviously faked excitement. "Everything is fine!

"Iorin's well…" Tamaki's voice trailed off. At least, it didn't sound out of character.

They were all covering for each other. That was no good, because they all sounded so fake and were downright lying at everyone. But what could they do more? They couldn't tell everyone Iori had gotten shot. That'd cause too much mess, right?

"According to the fans," the anxiety continued to build up, "some of them have seen Iori-kun's name on a nameplate. One of them even said they knew someone who took care of him there! Is it true, guys?"

They were busted. There was no other word than this. Busted.

"These are just rumours and allegations, right?" Sogo tried his best.

"Rumours suck," Tamaki spat in frustration. "Stop saying Iorin's not well."

"It's true."

Everyone gasped and turned to Mitsuki, face down, eyes staring at the TV host, fists clenched and teeth gritting on the inside.

"Mitsu," Yamato yelled in his direction, "what are you doing?"

"I thought Iorin didn't want it to be known!" Tamaki got upset too. "You're ruining it, Mikki!"

"Mitsuki-san…" Riku's voice was much more hesitant.

Sogo and Nagi kept quiet.

He was trying his hardest to keep his tears inside his eyes. Frustration was making his blood boil.

"It's no use lying, guys… They've got us busted. Someone must have seen his bedroom door. We're just digging our own graves here. Let's be honest for a second."

He could feel the rage radiating from his fellow members. But really, what use was there to lying about it and trying to hide what couldn't be hidden forever? Fans would always find a way to know. Their intentions were to protect Iori from troubles: it was a failure. It was time to move on, and maybe spread a small message.

"You confirm to this being true, then, Mitsuki-kun?" Mr Shimooka asked in reaction.

"Yeah."

A heavy silence followed. Everyone just stared at him. Everyone in the set, audience and stage alike, were staring at him. Who wouldn't? He had just thrown a truth bomb there. Of course they would be at least surprised by him coming so upfront with the issue at stake.

"We were waiting for Takanashi Productions to release the information themselves," Sogo explained next, "but the fans got ahead of us… We're sorry for hiding this from you all."

"We have our reasons for doing so though," Yamato continued, trying to calm down. "So don't go out of your way to make Ichi's life miserable."

"Everyone!" Riku directly spoke to the audience and camera. "Even if you know where Iori is right now, please don't disturb anyone! Hospital staff's already working very hard to make patients' life better, so don't make it harder for them, okay? Iori wouldn't like it either anyway, since it'd bother him too!"

"You guys…" Mitsuki whispered rather faintly. Man, even when he had just spilled the beans they had fought so hard to keep inside the can, they were still helping him out of the mess he had caused to them.

"Don't think about it to much, Mitsu," their leader told him.

"Yeah!" Riku added. "One of us would have slipped sooner or later anyway. Don't guilt over it too much, okay?"

Mitsuki could only wipe the tears falling off from his eyes with his arm.

"Guys, thanks, it's… I don't have words for this…"

"Don't stress it!" Riku replied. "We all want Iori to be safe and sound, right?"

"Riku-kun's right. There is no ill intent here. Arguing over there right here and now is useless," Sogo added.

On the way backstage again, it was rather silent. The reveal had been tougher on their mind than they had all expected, it seemed. Mitsuki didn't dare speaking up either: he was still unsure whether or not they were blaming him for the tense show they had just gone through. And, most of all, he was unsure if Iori was going to be upset at him or not because of that.

He had broken under the pressure of the situation. They weren't doing so well at lying, maybe because they knew they couldn't keep it a secret forever. Not when they had fans all across the country and not when there were so many questions about where Iori had gone. His absence was felt by everyone around him, them first, but they weren't just seven around the issue. They, maybe, had forgotten their fans cared too.

Something that Iori hadn't forgotten.

He got a small tap on the shoulder from Riku, getting him out of his thoughts. Looking up, he noticed everyone was looking at him, small smiles on their faces. He allowed himself to sigh in relief for a bit. His fellow members didn't seem to hold a grudge against him. They had understood the why behind his actions and words.

They didn't even need to speak up their thoughts anymore for the others to understand them. That was nothing short of comforting in this situation to be understood this quickly.

In frustration, he turned off the TV.

This wasn't supposed to be leaked and he thought he had made it clear enough to everyone he had spoken to. His own brother had spilled the beans, and he couldn't find himself to blame him. That just wasn't expecting.

Yet, Iori couldn't actually blame anyone for this, except for how insistent outsiders had been on his condition and hiatus. People never knew when to stay in their lane. This was nobody's business aside from his and his idol unit. Nobody else was supposed to know such inside things.

He should had expected it, though. The entertainment business was all about knowing every single detail possible about the people working in it and with a fanbase. Journalists wanted this for their newest scoop. Fans wanted to know what was up with the people they admired. Like his brother was concerned for Zero, their fans were concerned for him.

Day 4. He wished he could exit this hospital, because he felt like it had been long enough: it was the fourth day, and yet he still felt weak. It wasn't feeling like broken glass anymore: it wasn't shards, it was a disbanded unity. No, he had the exact feeling in words…

He was a broken doll.

Something which had been damaged, knocked over, fractured in some specific zones, which got broken down and built up again once. A doll who had been cut open and put back together, just so its gears could be fixed.

The feeling of soreness wouldn't go away. His right shoulder still hurt to move even a little too rowdily, his left leg was painful just to move around (anaesthetics may had played a part Saturday) and his abdomen wound made it a chore to move as he wanted. And despite the fact he was getting told it was getting better with time, his recovery was steady, it was still slow and such a time-consuming process.

In fact, he had never felt so frustrated since his brother couldn't get selected in auditions for petty reasons. Or that when he had ruined everyone's efforts at Music Festa. That was such a rare feeling, and yet, such a despicable one…

There was no use thinking about how bad it was, right? It wouldn't make his injuries heal faster. It wouldn't make anything go faster. He just had to wait. Wait and wait again. Wait until it was all done and over with. Wait until he was told so. And, well, there was no day given by anyone at any point. Just some "we'll see" or "soon, probably".

Time was very slow, all of a sudden, especially as he was being kept in the dark. He'd have to message his brother and the manager after another night of light sleep.

This incident was just screaming to Iori how his perception of self may had been biased by his certainties. He was very confident in his skills and analytical abilities… Perhaps too much so, in fact. He was able to ace most, if all not all things he was tasked to do: studies, dancing, singing, managing, helping around, making people notice issues he couldn't fix himself… And that was where it all felt apart: he was, in fact, not so good all by himself.

He couldn't really pride himself in "taking care of his condition perfectly" when he was hospitalized with three gunshot wounds, couldn't he? That wasn't like he was in any condition to do anything other than chat with people, catch back on school work he had missed, and think back on the events of Saturday, before and after.

Honestly, he was tired of the events looping in his head over and over again like a broken record spinning the same disk eternally. Yet, the events kept repeating, because he really couldn't brush them off like that.

His brother's sorrow, his parents' worry, the group's solicitude, the reveals on the set… They were all connected, and while that was obvious, it only hurt more now that he realized it was because he hadn't found a better solution. A solution which would had avoided all this unneeded ruckus and worry.

He hated getting worried for, especially when he was such a load for everyone else. When he couldn't do anything to actually be of any help to anyone. He couldn't help Nanase, or his brother, or the manager or… anyone, really.

Iori let himself fall back into a lying position as he turned off the lights. There was no need to stay up if it meant obsessing over dark clouds. There was no need to look around the almost-empty and impersonal room again and again and again.

Even if he knew he would still think about it before exhaustion finally took over.


	8. I'd Rather Feel Pain Than Nothing At All

Her eyes stopped on a familiar name written on a door.

It was… odd, to see it written on there. Almost felt surreal, actually, as if she was in a lucid dream. The feeling was slight, but it was still lingering. It was plaguing her thoughts right as she tried remembering what she was doing standing in front of that door with her phone in her hand. Better turn that down, by the way.

Maybe she would check if it was this person in particular later.

There were two pieces of news today.

Good news: he finally had a way to regain some capacity to move around on his own. In fact, it wasn't very far from his bed, close to the door, an invitation to escape from his room for the first time in five days.

Bad news: it was still far enough from his bed that his leg would make it difficult to reach it, and of everything, it was a wheelchair. Its wheels looked old, if not strained to death, and his shoulder was going to make it difficult to move it with his own two arms.

Iori would had lied, would he had said he wasn't at least a bit pissed over this. More frustrating than being unable to move freely was to have a hope spot, only for it to turn out to be half a lie. Sure, he had some hope to move, but until someone could bring him to that wheelchair and make it roll for him, he was still stuck in this room and in this bed. That wasn't making it much better.

Schoolwork hadn't taken very long to take care of either. Well, there was something odd with it : his brain felt foggier than usual when it came to it, on second thought. The reason why wasn't very clear, but it may had been linked to the same thing as ever these days: injuries, physical weakness, exhaustion, weakened system as a result.

A knock on his door at around five in the afternoon was beyond suspicious. Yet, he still said yes to that mysterious person, only to meet eyes with someone familiar. Someone he, honestly, hadn't expected to see in this hospital at this moment. Not when…

"Good afternoon, Izumi-kun."

"Kimidori-san…?"

Still dressed in her school uniform, she closed the door and went to him. Just like Yotsuba, she didn't sit down: instead, she leaned on the wall.

"Yeah, that's me. You seem surprised to see me, am I wrong?"

He deadpanned. He was way too easily readable lately.

"Sort of… I wasn't expecting you to listen to yesterday's talk show…"

"What talk show?"

Huh. What a weird question, except when it came from Kimidori.

"Do you mean you… just found this room without knowing I was here…?"

Kimidori scratched the back of her head.

"To be honest," she replied, "people talked about you at school, and the only thing I got out of it was that you were confirmed to be on hiatus. I actually just came across your door when visiting a friend."

"You expect me to believe that was just a mere coincidence…"

"Honestly no, but what more do you want from me? It's not like I had a real solid reason to come visit other than it's so weird to have you missing in action."

A smirk drew itself on his face.

"So you were worried for me, weren't you…"

She looked away.

"Shut up. If someone in that class is worried for you, it's Yotsuba-kun and like the Ainana fans. I'm not interested in whatever hap…"

Her eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"What the fuck happened to you, Izumi?!"

He let out something akin to a sigh and a wimp at the same time.

"I thought you 'weren't interested', Kimidori-san…"

"Dude," she bit back, "anybody'd be concerned by seeing you right now! What the flying hell?!"

He rolled his eyes. Another sigh.

"Stop yelling… You're going to disturb everyone else…"

Kimidori groaned.

"Izumi," she bit again. "Don't grant me for stupid. I know when something important has happened and when it's just a fluke. Even your voice's a bit groggy. I didn't know you started smoking entire packets of cigarettes a day."

She had even less tact than Nanase had, and that in itself was impressive. Rather negative, but impressive nonetheless.

"It's because I _obviously_ didn't… I'm also certain you don't need to know about all this…"

"Maybe I don't need to know all this like you say but… Knowing you, Izumi-kun, you're wanting to get out of this bed asap no question asked. Am I wrong?"

Bullseye. He could only groan lightly.

"What are you trying to imply with this, Kimidori-san…?"

She nonchalantly pointed to the wheelchair.

"Say, let's make a deal. I wheel you around the hospital as you wish, and you tell me what in the world happened to you. You sure look like you need to see something else than this room."

"I could use the help, but…" He sighed. "You're making me make a deal with the devil, Kimidori-san."

It was her turn to sigh.

"You win. I'll wheel you around, and then you can tell me what happened to you if you're comfortable with it, okay?"

"It works for me."

With some efforts from the both of them, they managed to pull him from the bed and into the chair. It wasn't any more comfortable than the bed, but it would have to do, and plus it had the advantages of not being that bed. He could use some time not spent in that bed, to be entirely honest. He could use lots of it. They sailed off from the bedroom to the corridors of the floor.

Shile Kimidori waved at some people she seemed to know, Iori was completely discovering the entire thing altogether. It had been years since he had actually spent any time in a hospital, and maybe the second time he was hospitalized altogether. There was this one time he fractured his bones trying to imitate his brother, but that was it, really. It was nothing compared to why he was here these days. He clutched his IV stand as much as possible.

Around a corner, they came across two teenage girls, a blonde and a brunette, on their phones. One of them had a familiar-looking charm on hers… He'd have said it was one representing Nanase. They were fans of I7. The kind of people he really, really needed to see at the moment.

The blonde rose her head from her phone screen before almost squealing. She furiously shook her friend's shoulder, and when the latter finally broke eye contact with her screen, she seemed as surprised as the former was. It was kind of amusing to watch, but on the other hand, he knew it was because they had spotted him.

"Man," Kimidori quickly pulled him out of his thoughts yet again, "these are your fans, am I wrong?"

"They're Nanase's," Iori replied as calmly as he could pull off, "but they're probably fans of I7 as a whole…"

"You seem very shaken, Izumi-kun. There's something wrong with them or you?"

"Not in particular… I can't exactly picture who is who when it comes to our fans, sadly. There's too many of them to really keep track of. I don't feel like I've seen them before, though."

The two girls ran to them, looking both ecstatic and intimidated. Was it because he was the one usually considered cold and strict? Or was it because of his seemingly oh-so-twisted appearance? He could try and guess why they had such an expression on their face as long as they wouldn't have talked to him.

"Iori-san!" the brunette yelled, and that was when he noticed the charm on her phone was modelled after him. That was even worse than he had gotten time to expect, in retrospect.

They stopped in front of the wheelchair. They both had concerned expressions on their faces, despite the smiles he could see creeping on their lips. It was very bittersweet to see. He was making people both happy and sad. Bittersweet really was the word for the situation.

"We heard you got hospitalized, Iori-san," the blonde one told him with a stutter in her voice, "b-but we didn't know it was in this hospital!"

"It's not very nice to say," her friend added, "but we're very honoured to meet you, Iori-san! We never thought it'd be possible!"

"Yeah, Hiroko's right! I'm so happy to be able to meet you in real! Even if it's like that… It's not like we look very good either anyway…"

Upon looking at them again, Iori could only agree with this statement: they both looked a bit pale for their age, even compared to the already pale Kimidori. One of them had some very thin pipes in her nose, and the other one had her own IV stand. They looked like they had spent more time in there than he had ever done.

"Don't say that, girls!" Kimidori chimed in. "You look great too you know. And I'm sure your 'Iori-san' doesn't like you depreciating yourselves like that, right?"

Goddamn Kimidori. She was a professional when it came to embarrassing him by stating aloud what he would never say.

"R-right…"

The brunette scratched the back of her head, before staring at his torso for a moment. Her bulging eyes could only mean she had the same questions in her mind as Kimidori did.

"What happened to you, Iori-san?" she asked. "In the show yesterday the other members of I7 told us you were on hiatus, but we didn't know it was because you were that injured!"

The concern dripping from her voice was sickening.

"I can't tell you what happened," he replied. "Just like the others aren't allowed to tell anyone exterior about this incident."

The grip on the wheelchair's handle strengthened.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Izumi?"

"I am not 'fucking kidding you', Kimidori-san. In any way. I'd also advise watching your language."

"I'd finally come off clean with having gunshot wounds, Izumi-kun."

Iori heard himself gulp from this. Cold sweat flooded his entire body. The girls had gone quiet.

"Gunshot… wounds…?" one of them whispered under her breath.

He turned to face his classmate, ready to bark at her, before he noticed she didn't look angry. Rather, she looked… concerned? Anxious? Frustrated? Worried? It wasn't that cut-clear.

"How do you know that… Kimidori…?!"

It felt like he had gone breathless all of a sudden, air squeezed out of his chest like the juice squeezed out of a lemon.

The green-haired girl looked down and away.

"When I was facing the door to your room wondering if it really was you or just another guy somehow sharing both his names with you," she whispered, "I heard some nurses talking about you. They were mentioning how you had been shot defending your brother…"

His entire soul was screaming for her to stop spewing his personal life, and the worst of it too, to two fans of I7. That wasn't how it worked. Yet, his lips couldn't move, and his eyes couldn't look anywhere but his own injuries. The only thing telling him the girls were still there was their breathing and their small whispers of worry.

"I… didn't even know you had a brother before getting told so by Yotsuba-kun, Izumi-kun. You never talk much of you to me, when I think about it. According to the fans I've come across, you have some kind of brother complex, but… I've never seen it from you. And now that I know you were willing to die for your brother, I'm just…"

"So you were trying to get me to speak up so you could… bury me for hiding…?"

"Who do you think I am?!" she took offense. "A monster? A gossiper?! No, I'm saying that as a… a closer than the others classmate, I guess. It's probably one-sided anyway. I'm not saying that for me, Izumi-kun. I'm saying that for you. You can't keep it bottled up forever. Not when you spend your time thinking everyone else but you deserves your life."

He was speechless. For one of the first times of his life, he was speechless! How did that happen?!

The grip on the wheelchair's handle softened, until the hands completely let go.

"I'm out. I may come by before I leave, I just… need some air. Girls, please take care of Izumi-kun, okay? You probably don't want me in the way."

She left, just like that, leaving him along with two girls he didn't know. Weird, awkward and yet a bit interesting.

The brunette took hold of the handle herself.

"Iori-san," she asked in a shy voice, "where do you want to go? We can show you around if you want…"

"I…" his voice sounded so uncertain. "Just bring me back to my room… I need to think back on the situation for bit…"

"Roger!"

He was certain he'd just be quiet for the reminder of the way to his room, but instead, he found himself replying to some questions about I7 and the members of the group after he had made a pinky promise with each of the girls to keep it secret from other fans. In exchange, they had told him some facts about their lives. It was all pretty mundane, but it felt nice to hear something different than "how are you" and "why did you do that".

For once, Iori realized he was tired of hearing his own brother, even if the latter had the best intentions in the world when doing that.

Eventually, they arrived in front of his door. The blonde girl opened it up, but he didn't really want to go back into his room just yet now… But he had to. He couldn't allow fans to enter the most personal space of vulnerability he had after his room at his parents' house. He would just suffer from his shoulder wound for a few minutes.

"Iori-san, can we tell you one last thing?" the brunette spoke up as she let go of the wheelchair.

"Sure…"

"Thank you for accepting to spend some time with us!"

He was taken aback by their excitement. He didn't feel like he had accomplished such a feat or did anything remotely interesting for him to be so happy.

"What do you mean…?' escaped his month.

"It's so rare for us to meet our idols," Ai explained, "that it's a blast to be able to meet you! Hiroko's the biggest fan of you out there too, so she's double happier than me!"

"Yeah, usually idols never go to hospitals, and when they do, they're kept in special rooms and all… But you don't, Iori-san. We know and understand why an idol wouldn't want to be with the other patients, but you still took some time for us, so… Thank you! You made hospital check-ups so much less boring!"

A small smile made his way onto his lips too. He didn't have the voice to tell them "you're welcome".

A knock on his door didn't even break him of his train of thoughts, at first. What did was when an unknown girl entered the room, a suspicious-looking box medicine in her hand, weary eyes looking across the corridor as she closed the door.

"Excuse me…" Iori said, immediately sensing something was fishy. "Who are you…?"

"A nurse," she said while going up to him. "Isn't it obvious, Izumi?"

"You're not dressed in the mandatory uniform… You lack a badge… You look like you don't want to be spotted by someone… You didn't name yourself… And I got assigned to precise—Glk?!"

Before he knew it, the IV in his arm had gotten torn by force from his wrist.

"And what do you think about that, you goddamn brat?!"

He couldn't make any eye contact with her. The pain was taking over him: tear-filled eyes, gritted tears, and nothing else but hold his bleeding right wrist in his hand.

"Who… are… you…?!" was all he could get out, under his breath.

"I can't forget what you and your group did! Do you like ruining people's lives like that?!"

He couldn't speak.

The pain flaring in his wrist was unbearable. His entire vision had turned into a smudged stain, and before he knew it, that girl had made him drink a weird liquid he didn't know the nature of. He could swear he heard her run away when everything turned to black with a dizzy spell.


	9. The Dread of the Past and of the Future

She slowly opened the door, intimidated, hand shaking on the handle. She had gone overboard with revealing he had gotten shot in front of his fans, right…? Right… She had to apologize for letting herself do that like that. These two girls looked terrified too.

She still didn't get what was up with that idol thing, and she had never seen Izumi as someone with fans attached to his name, but that didn't make it okay.

"Izumi-kun…? It's Kimidori… Mind if I come in?"

No response. Weird, coming from someone as bored as Izumi on his hospital bed. He would have told her to either go away or come in. She didn't pretend like she knew him that well, considering he was usually stiffer than an ironed wooden door, but… She felt like she knew better than that from him.

Who was she kidding? She didn't know Izumi. He was as enigmatic as an unsolved math problem.

"I'm coming in anyway. I forgot to give you today's homework and lessons. Yotsuba-san didn't come…"

She froze upon entering the room.

"…to school today."

Sei approached with timid steps, legs like frozen logs she was trying to move around. A deadly shiver coursed through her body as soon as her feet touched the ground. Her eyes were trying to get out of their sockets. Her stomach turned upside down immediately, not letting much time for her to keep the nausea in.

"I-Izumi..?"

Before her eyes, her classmate, breathing in and out heavily, wrist hanging down from the bed with blood pouring from it in drops. A glass of something spilled on the floor. Blood on the floor, mixing with the greenish liquid.

The smell of almond and copper in the air filled her nose. Was she not too shocked by seeing Izumi like this, she'd have fell to her knees.

" _Izumi!"_

Mitsuki wanted to fucking punch something.

He didn't know what he wanted to punch. He just wanted to thrust his fists into something, anything, before he could punch someone, anyone. The walls, the table, his chair, Nagi's chair next to him, his glass, the door, the ground, Tamaki's pudding he had been eating before the news dropped, something, anything.

"Mi-Mitsu, you're scary when you're angry…" Yamato whispered.

Nobody else was speaking up. Everyone was either looking away or looking down: there was no escaping the fury having taken a hold of him. None. It may not had been directed at them: it could backfire anyway, would anyone say something even in the slightest aggravating. It was just… terrifying to see him like that, he'd guess.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" the manager apologized over and over again, yet again.

Iori really was right when he had told her it didn't serve much use. Despite the good intentions oozing from her panicked words, it didn't help anything, and she had just dropped a bomb onto them. A bomb whose explosion was Mitsuki's rage.

"It's… it's not your fault, Manager…" Riku mustered up all the courage he had to tell her that.

Mitsuki forced himself to calm down, if not just to ask if she had anything else to tell them about Iori's whereabouts, but it just didn't want to go away. His veins were still filled with boiling lava. No matter what he tried to do, it just wouldn't want to go away. The need to punch something. The need to punch the face of the bitch who had done that to his little brother.

There was no way he was ever letting that go. He didn't consider himself to be someone cruel, but nobody had the right to land even a single hand on his brother. Not again. Not when he was at his most vulnerable. That was just so fucking dirty!

"Manager," Nagi asked despite the overflowing tenseness of the situation, "do you have any news?"

"I do!" her face regained some happiness to it, albeit very slightly.

She got out of her bag some crinkled paper sheets with her trembling hands.

"Huh… The doctor wrote me some stuff, lemme just read it, okay…?"

Mitsuki sat down again, fists clutched into feeling his nails enter his skin. He had never been this furious in his life, not even when that asshole from the other day had shot Iori. He had felt more broken than outraged, back there, and his anger had been strangled by his sorrow. This time around, though… There was no sorrow. Just rage and boiling worry.

He just couldn't get his head to wrap around while someone would do such a thing to Iori of everyone. Maybe he was biased (after all, the victim was his younger brother, not just anyone to him), but really, Iori wasn't a bad person at all. He was rough around the edges sometimes, because that was how his tongue was, but why would someone do something so painful and cruel to someone as selfless and as well-meaning as Iori?

"It's written that Iori-san's not in any critical condition…" Tsumugi's voice was shaking as she started reading the paper.

Everyone sighed in relief, even Mitsuki himself. Riku's sigh was the second loudest, hands on his chest. In a way, some weight had flown away.

"And, huh… Oh dear…"

Everyone then went back to being tense and worried. He didn't know his heart could beat this fast, actually. It felt like it was about to explode under its own beats.

"They identified the liquid Iori-san was forced to drink… as…"

Riku rose up from his chair.

"Wait, you never told us Iori had been forced to drink something, Manager!"

"Riku-kun's right," Sogo added. "I don't remember us knowing about this piece of information, at least."

"I… I'm sorry! I must have forgotten to tell you all!"

Her grip on the paper sheets strengthened.

"Anyway," Yamato calmed everyone down, "what did they force Ichi to drink?"

"A… pyrogen? What is a pyrogen?"

They were all curious, except Sogo who just gulped.

"If I'm not mistaken, it makes the one who drinks it feverish… This isn't good in the slightest…"

Panic washed all over them again.

"You're… you're kidding, right?" Yamato asked, just in case, always just in case.

"Such a thing exists? Why would someone invent something like that?" Riku asked, probably not expecting a real answer.

"It's usually used to get rid of lingering bacteria and viruses who won't go away… I didn't think someone would try using it to harm other people…"

"How did they get a hold of it, though?" Yamato asked. "That crap mustn't be easy to find, right?"

"We don't know much about the assaulter yet," Tsumugi said in a shiver. "She got caught by someone Iori-san knew, but she still refuses to speak…"

Mitsuki got up without a word.

"Mikki?" Tamaki asked, his voice getting a bit shaking.

"Mitsuki?" Nagi asked again, concern written all over his face. "What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving! I can't stay there shitting around on a chair!"

"Where are you going?!" Nagi's worry intensified even more.

"Isn't that obvious?!"

"You can't just leave like that, Mitsuki-san!" the manager tried to stop him. "It's pouring down outside! You'll catch a cold!"

"Manager's right! Mitsuki-kun, you should stay here…"

Yet it didn't affect him at all.

"I'll see myself out!"

He ran to the door, hearing everyone else scream his name behind his back, but there was no stopping him now. He would sprint to the hospital even if it meant getting there exhausted. He quickly grabbed his coat, slipped on his shoes and ran outside in a flash.

And once in the street, the only thing he did was sprint on lengths he didn't expect to be able to run. And, as he did so, Mitsuki let out some of the tears he had contained for what felt like years. It just pained it too much to think…

…to think someone had purposely profited of Iori's vulnerability to do such a horrible act.

When he came to, there was a pounding in his head. A thumbing, unusual pounding. It felt… awful. Everything hurt and felt numb at the same time: his neck, his eyes, his throat, his wrist, his legs… Everything was blurry and muffled. It was all white around him whenever he could open his eyes even a little bit. A bit like when he had first woken up from getting shot, in this same hospital, in this same bed…

Except there were two breathes instead of one, this time around.

"You're…" his brother's voice trailed off.

He knew it was his brother because he would recognize that voice even if he was deaf. There was just something which told him it was his brother.

"You're finally awake…"

His wrist had regained enough sensitivity to feel his brother's hand clutching his. He must had been very worried. Again, may he have added.

His memories feel very fuzzy and remembering what could have possibly happened before he woke up wasn't helping the mysterious headache he had going down in the back of his skull. He'd have to postpone that, or just… ask, after all.

"B… brother…? Wha… What happened…?"

"Oh, sure, you probably don't remember that…" the older boy's voice seemed to come to a halt, before he gulped.

"I… I'm not sure… I wasn't there…"

Another familiar, albeit far less reassuring, spoke up.

"Nobody was, Izumi… Izumi-san." The feminine voice sounded confused for a moment before resuming. "I just happened to walk in on that bitch's shady business right after it happened. That's the only reason why I was able to catch her, in fact."

"Who…? what…?"

He was getting utterly confused. He had barely attributed that voice and tone to Kimidori (why was she even still around?), and yet she was already speaking about people he didn't know like he knew them.

"Oh, that's right. Izumi-kun, you just woke up, you probs don't know what the hell happened to you."

He'd have to bite back despite his strange ailment.

"Then tell me, Kimidori-san…! How am I supposed to know otherwise!" He snapped as he sat up.

His attempt at sounding at least a bit menacing was quickly met with a dizzy spell out of nowhere, which forced him

"Iori!" His brother told him in a hurry.

He then put a hand on his… forehead? What an odd thing to do.

Kimidori cleared her throat.

"Anyway, as I was saying. Shortly after I left you with these two fans, I decided to backtrack and check if…" She looked away and bit her lip. "If you were indeed back into your room. Plus I had to give you today's homework and all."

"She's worried for you!" His brother whispered to him. He smirked back.

"Shut up!" Her fists clenched her arms. "You weren't responding, and the door wasn't fully closed, so I allowed myself in…"

Kimidori lost her dishonest face for an honest, enraged inverted grin.

"That's where I found you with the IV torn from your wrist and the glass of pyrogen on the floor, its contents spilled on the floor, meddling with your blood…"

She exhaled a pained sigh.

"I called for a nurse and then immediately ran back out as soon as I noticed someone had been spying on me checking up on you. And… for some reason, I just kicked her to the ground and stomped her. Apparently, she attends your previous high school, Izumi-kun."

That was a weird detail to slip in there about this assaulter he didn't remember.

"I don't even get what she was trying to spew… I guess she was a fan from that other popular idol band thing, TRIGGER or something, and she was very, very angry at yours for becoming popular? Idol fans are sometimes the worst, I swear."

And then her tone dropped again.

"I'll never forgive her for what she did."

His brother seemed surprised. Well, so was he, after all. Then the older one gritted his teeth.

"Same here. What happened is unforgiveable. I can't forgive someone so cruel!"

Mitsuki wiped tears of frustration out of his eyes.

"I almost forgot… Thanks, Kimidori. You saved Iori from even worse."

Her eyes softened, and so did her posture, contrasting with her previous anger.

"Don't stress it, Izumi-san… It's just normal to help someone in need. Speaking of that… I'll leave you alone. I don't think Izumi-kun wants me around at the moment, and I'm sure you have a ton of stuff to say. I'll be going."

She made her way to the door, then stopped.

"Kimidori-san…?"

Iori called to her. For some reason… He didn't really want her to leave. She had information he didn't have.

"Yeah?"

"You don't have anything more to say…?"

She faced them both again.

"Oh, yeah, I do…"

And she cleared her throat again before gulping. She seemed almost intimidated, in fact.

"Take care, Izumi-kun. I know you're that kind of guy who thinks he'll be alright as long as everyone he cares about is, but… That's not really the case. Izumi-kun, you need to take care of yourself more, okay? And not just for us, even if I know a ton of people are worried for you. I'll come by sooner or later, I guess. See you."

Kimidori left on that, leaving the brothers alone.

A short silence ensued. For once, Iori was the one to break the ice in this room.

"Brother… What… What happened…?" he asked, with a much more hesitant voice. "I'm very confused…"

His voice was very hoarse. Less groggy than when he had just woken up on Saturday, but still very thick and hard to hear himself.

"Huh… Kimidori explained this to me before you woke up. Some weird groupie entered your room and tore off the IV from your arm."

Mitsuki's face distorted into anger. Pure anger Iori hadn't seen in years. Why was he angrier with her than with the gunman?

"And to make matters worse, they found out she had forced you to drink some kind of poison! That bitch tried to kill you off when you couldn't defend yourself!"

"I… I could have, big brother…"

"No! No you couldn't, Iori!"

Shocked much more than he would had liked to admit, he gulped. What had he done wrong by saying that?

"Have you forgotten you're injured again, Iori…?"

He sees tears running down his brother's cheeks. What should he do to make him feel better? Quick, he needs something, anything good…

"No, brother, I haven't…"

"You couldn't have stopped her, Iori… That was why she tore off the IV from your arm. She… she knew you wouldn't stop her if you were in too much pain… And I hate that! That's just so cruel for someone to do! You were at her complete mercy!"

"Big brother…"

Once again, Iori didn't have the words he wanted to have to soothe his brother. To be honest, he wanted to cry too: he didn't feel good at all, he would have said even worse than when he had just woken up from his bullets. Less lethargic, sure, but… dizzier and colder. He had chills all over his body.

"Do you know why… why I feel so bad…?"

Mitsuki wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

"It's that pyrogen… It's what she forced you to drink…"

"Pyrogen…"

The word seemed to ring a bell, but which one, exactly? His dizzy gears had trouble processing the information… until it fell upon him. A pyrogen. He had a fever. That explained a lot…

In his daze, he hadn't noticed he had something on his forehead until his brother used to wipe his face. It felt… warm, before the latter took it off and put it again fresher. His eyes were unable to really focus on anything. He gave his little brother a soft smile.

"Come to think of it, I've never got to take care of you when you were ill either… You usually take care of everything yourself. I guess this is no normal illness, though…"

A part of him was angry about having to be taken care of. He hated depending on people. But, on the other hand… Did he really have a choice there? He was injured, dizzy, dazed and feverish. There was no way he could actually do much at the moment. Moreover… His brother's presence was more than welcome, at this very moment.

"Do you know… how long it'll take for the fever to go away…"

"If I'm not mistaken," his brother's voice is a bit hesitant, as if trying to remember, "the doctor told me it'd take a day, two at most. The time it exits your body or something."

Mitsuki then gulped and his eyes dimmed down.

"I know you hate this, Iori, but… Please hang in there. Don't do anything too reckless tonight, okay? We don't want it to get worse."

"What… are you talking about…?"

The expression on the older sibling's face turned to sadness.

"You may remember it, since it was a long while ago… But you used to have terrible nightmares when you had a fever, when you were a child. It was terrifying, and Mom and Dad would forbid me to see you, so…"

It all flowed inside Iori's mind.

The nightmares, the night terrors, the times he'd wake up thinking his brother was dead, his parents' worry, the times he'd jump out of bed in sweat… All before he was even in middle school. That was maybe one of the reasons why he had wanted to have such perfect health, after all. It was better to forget about all these almost sleepless nights.

It was all before he had become who he was. And yet, and yet…

Iori was terrified they would come back.


	10. The Caged Child

It always started with a call from the police. It always started with the phone ringing in the morning.

He was home for his day off, deciding to help his parents around in the bakery, at the worst moment his family was going through. It was calm, almost a bit too much so, until the phone rang. His mother got the phone, said "hello?", immediately switched to more anxiety. It had been very tense in this house for the past day. Ever since Iori had gone missing. His mother had cried, his father had screamed at the police, and he had done both at the same time.

Mitsuki and Iori had been together, when the latter had gone missing. He didn't exactly know how it had happened. It was as if his mind had forgotten when it had slipped up, as if the event had been wiped off from his memory. The bitter taste of failure and the sour taste of worry had remained in his mouth ever since he had been realized Iori wasn't with him anymore and since they had realized they couldn't find him.

The call ended shortly after. A wave of chill coursed through his body. His mother, in an unfamiliar calm and sorrowful tone, told him: "They have found Iori". Before he knew it, his entire family was in a car driving to the police station. The sky was grim, it was raining, it was cold, it was windy, almost stormy. As if the weather was trying to express what was going on in his heart. An odd, but appreciated occurrence: getting blinded by the overly happy sun during times of sorrow was beyond frustrating.

The police staff were staring at the three of them with pitiful eyes. And Mitsuki hated pity. He hated the feeling of dread it was filling him with him: once and for all, what had happened? Why did everyone look at them like they had just lived through the end of the world? Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why…?

Why…

Before he knew it, Mitsuki was in a dark room with his parents by his sides, as a saddened forensic turned on the lights on a table with a human-shaped lump hidden under a white sheet. He wanted to vomit, as soon as he realized this had all already ended badly. They were in the middle of the worst possible outcome. The gunned bitch the police had found, that he remembered seeing already splattered in the blood of an innocent I7 fan who had the misfortune to come across her path and be better than her at school, had already done the deed.

He didn't even look at the table when the sheet got taken off the corpse. He didn't look to know his brother was dead before they had stepped a foot in this room. It didn't even smell like blood, because it had all dried before they came in. Before they knew anything about the situation. He cried the biggest tears of his life and fell to his knees, eyes fixated on the bullet holes in the corpse of his own brother, two to the chest, in each lung, and one to the head, right between his empty eyes, before it all turned white.

Mitsuki woke up in a jump, sweating heavily, gasping. It was all a nightmare. It was… unreal. Not real. Nothing of this kind had happened. Iori hadn't died. Iori wasn't dead. It was all in his mind, as disturbing and as gut-wrenching at it was. He still had the taste of nausea in his mouth and the chills of fear on his body. He still had the picture of the bullet right between his brother's dead eyes flashing before his eyes.

He wiped his face with his hands. This sure was terrifying… He had gotten some troubled dreams because of his concern for Iori before this night, but this was an entirely new plane of terror he had live through there. He had seen a severely injured Iori in his sleep before, sometimes coughing his own blood, sometimes feverishly using his body as a shield, but never had he seen him dead like that.

The first thing he did once he was done shaking and panting, was to turn on his phone and send all the messages which flooded through his mind, gates of worry opened and spilling all over his phone screen.

"Are you OK Iori?"

"You're fine right? Tell me you're fine"

"If you need anything call me even if it's in the middle of the night or training"

"You're probably sleeping right now… but please reply to me in the morning"

"Please reply, please, I need to know if you're safe"

Only then did Mitsuki look at what time it was. Two in the morning, huh. With dread and a sudden feeling of exhaustion, he decided to run to the kitchen to serve himself a glass of water, to at least make the taste of vomit disappear from his mouth.

He had finally been authorized to exit his bed and explore the hospital on his own. Hospitals weren't fascinating, such a thing was commonly spread knowledge, but Iori was more than glad to finally be able to see something else than his room without having to ask a nurse or visitors to wheel him around. As soon as his feet hit the ground, his legs lost all of their lethargy.

As soon as he opened the door, the lights of the room turned off. It was weird to have automatic lights in a hospital room, especially as he had been lying without moving for days without this ever happening. It was one more reason not to stay here for much longer. He clutched the IV stand which had to accompany him (apparently, he still lacked some blood to be free of it) and made his way outside, closing the door behind him.

The corridor was sunk in darkness. Was it night time already? This was even weirder… He could have sworn it was the middle of the afternoon in his room. Maybe the artificial lights managed to trick his eyes, after all. It wouldn't be so surprising, in a way, as it had been days since the last time he had seen the natural sunlight.

Perhaps his perception of day and night was disturbed, after all. He would have to fix it up once he would be back home and working as an idol again. There was no way he was letting the bullets ruin his entire schedule after they got healed and patched up.

The corridors weren't only dark: they were also deadly silent. Almost too silent, would he add. Iori was used to calm hospitals (well, as calm as it was when he had to visit his brother or any relative he may or may not have remembered the identity of), sure, and it hadn't been very noisy since the beginning of his hospitalization, but it was eerily silent nonetheless. As if there was nobody else in the halls and rooms. Moreover, there was nobody other than him in the corridors: no nurse, no patient, no visitor… Truly as if everybody had left without telling him about it.

Which was, obviously, a very weird thing for a facility meant to welcome multiple people at a time and take of them like a hospital.

Out of curiosity and a thirst for his newly-found freedom, he still continued walking down the corridor. He had a slow pace, mostly because he was still weary of how odd the situation was, but also because his left leg still felt a bit numb, in a way, although it wasn't pain jolting down and up his nerves anymore. The more he advanced, the darker it was getting around him, until he had to eventually use his cell phone as a flashlight.

He didn't exactly know why he had taken his phone with him: maybe it served as his anchor into the outside world if he was to delve deep down the hospital's maze. Maybe it was his sole link with what was aside from the medical facility he was trapped in.

Now that he thought about it, this hospital was really anxiogenic. After a while, you couldn't not feel trapped in a cage you were forced to stay in twenty-four-seven. Even if the wheelchair was a thing, to Iori, it was no more than the key to the cage dwindling in front of his nose, yet out of reach. There had been no escape from this white prison, and even if he was right that moment walking down a part of the building he had never seen before, it was still only a fluke: he had just gotten out of his cell.

So it didn't feel like he had recovered much of his freedom. It was all a game of pretending to be free again. His spirit was still bound by chains to his injuries and ropes bound his body to his room. He knew he would have to come back there and lie down eventually. His injuries, after all, were still a bit sore.

Looking around, he had to notice something: there really was nobody. Even if he shook his phone's light around, there was nobody. Only closed doors awaited him in this route into what felt like the depths of a hidden, yet undiscovered world. And, well, Iori hated the unknown. There was no word to define how horrible it was not to know where he was going and how dangerous it actually was. Or why the situation was this way: odd, bizarre and intimidating.

He was at a point where going back wasn't such a bad idea after all. It'd mean going back to the only place he actually knew in the building: his room. For once, the hospital room he had cursed internally of white prison would become his actual safe spot. This truly was an odd journey into the depths of something he acutely knew was way over his head and way out of his control.

Upon trying to go back, he was prevented from doing so by something binding his feet to going forward. This was starting to get really odd. In a slight moment of panic, Iori flashed his impromptu flashlight on his ankles, hoping to figure out what was dragging him to the darkness, only to see nothing. There was nothing visible doing that to him? Was it all in his mind? And why?

There was an uneasiness building inside him. That feeling he wasn't in a safe situation he could get out of without hurting at least a bit. It was impossible to shake off as he resumed his walk into the depths of an unknown well, maybe of a staircase leading to some demise-like fate. It really was weird to feel that way in a hospital.

After more dreaded steps, accompanied by the darkness and shadows thickening all around him, he noticed there were some half-opened doors before his eyes. These were more lit than the sheer black surrounding him like a fog, and out of wanting to find one safer spot in this strangest of explorations, he gave one a shot and glanced inside of it.

Right here and there, was the corpse of a woman with a hole right where her heart should had been and black sand spilling on the floor from the hole and her wide opened mouth. As if it was never going to stop flowing and never going to vanish.

Before he knew it, Iori's back was against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, nausea rushing in, barely keeping his insides where they should be. He wasn't ready to see a dead body vomiting its own blood despite the sinister situation he was currently trapped in. It was… uncanny, at best.

In his brain rushed the idea of going back to his room, more than ever, just find the only place he knew and where he could go to feel a little bit better. It was getting more than dangerous. The smell of blood filled the corridor as the chains on his ankles vanished, letting him go back as quickly as he could with a numbed leg and his abdomen injury starting to hurt again. He had rarely felt that endangered. Even as he was getting shot, he still had his brother next to him, calling for help, and it was infinitely safer to be in the daylight with a high chance to make it in the end.

On the way back to his room, fog continued to rise until he noticed it wasn't as innocent as fog was. The burning in his throat and lungs made him realize the true nature of it: it was black smoke, poisonous, intoxicating, suffocating. It was blinding him, eyes squeezed shut, tearing as if trying to defend themselves against the smog. The smell of burnt and of gas made most of his functions turn off, to the point he was just wimping on the ground, forced to his knees by the sudden pressure around him.

He swore he could hear mocking laughter and intelligible, snarky whispers. He missed the shooting star of Nanase's voice, the warm smiles and hugs of his brothers, the cute embarrassed faces and apologies of his manager, the lassitude and quirks of Yotsuba, his idol group's everything, in fact. Even Kimidori's presence was welcome, desired, needed at this point.

He just wanted not to be alone in this misery.

Tears from sorrow and from his eyes hurting shed on the floor, drying immediately into more smoke, so he tried wimping his eyes with his hands and his arms. This only made everything hurt more, as if his skin was covered in sand. At this point, tears mixed with saliva, a truly humiliating experience to go through, even if he now knew he was the only one left alive, not even standing, in this place closer to a circle of Hell than to anything he had ever been in.

His consciousness was starting to dim from the sorrow and the continuous pain, until he noticed blood was starting to spill out of his wounds in the form of long, flowing crimson strands of sand, giving the only colour he was still able to see inside an entirely monochrome world to anything around him.

When Iori's eyes opened again and for one last time, all he saw was a familiar ceiling blurry because of his tears.

He had figured. It was all a terrible nightmare. Everybody around him spoke of their fever dreams as weird, out-of-body and out-of-mind experiences, but his were always vivid hellish landscapes he felt victim too. Coincidentally, he always felt like he'd lost control of himself when he was sick: was it why fever always coincided with these visions in his mind? Was ailment the only thing they needed to reach the surface and haunt his mind over and over again?

His head hurt. It wasn't time to think on such profound and deep things when simply thinking was painful.

For once, Iori could truly say he was happy to be in this hospital room. It was impersonal, cold and boring after a day of daze, but it was safe, it was white, and it felt like it was a place to stay in when he was vulnerable. He could call for help with the simple press of a button, would he get completely delusional and start thinking he actually got teleported in hell by a malevolent creature. Who knew what could happen, with a poison-induced fever.

With some lousy moves, his hand managed to land on the thermometer left by his bedside earlier in the day. He had no idea of what time it was, but his eyes hurt enough for him not to turn on his phone or laptop for the moment. If he was correct, the small screen of the thermometer glowed in the dark enough for him to see it. As usual, it turned how he was: all he could notice, was that it had considerably lowered. He was still sweating heavily from it and from the nightmares, but it was a good thing to see the number going below forty.

Well, he had been at forty and more before, right? His mind felt blurry on this. Probably the shock of the situation, probably the fever, probably the pain from the IV getting torn off his vein.

Eventually, he had to realize something: he didn't feel like sleeping. He was still too nervous, too afraid to go back to sleep. It'd just end up being a new nightmare. But, on the other hand, walking around the corridors of the hospital felt like risking his life and having to struggle with a rusty wheelchair and his wounded shoulder. Yeah, it was no more than a bundle of bad ideas.

As such, he just turned on his phone. Maybe there was something to read on it or on the Internet, bless the hospital's Wi-Fi for providing him with the information he may not had gotten from anyone else around him. Maybe he could just read some fan tweets in an attempt to determine what would please them and what they didn't want to see from the group. After all, that was all he could do to feel any useful.

Wait. It seemed like he had forgotten along the way he was still ill, hadn't he? Ill for less than twenty-four hours from then on, but still feverish and straight out of a nightmare. It wasn't the best time to analyse data.

His phone screen was quickly flooded with messages from his brother. It wasn't coming as a huge surprise to him: Mitsuki had been very stressed and concerned for his little brother since the latter had gotten shot. It was weird to think he wasn't the first one shocked about it: in fact, he was almost insensible to his own fate and condition, except for the fact it seriously hindered with his schedules and both school and idol business.

The messages were drenched in concern, as expected, as predicted. There was still a slight smile drawing itself on Iori's face: for some reason, for once, he appreciated the concern. Maybe it was because he had felt so alone and given upon in his nightmare before this moment that he felt like he needed to make sure people were with him. That he had people supporting him who get him away from terrible situations like getting shot or getting trapped inside an infernal rendition of a hospital.

A sudden wave of dizziness and exhaustion took over him almost as soon as he had finished reading the messages. Yet, before his vision turned black again, he still had the time to type and send one thing to his worried sibling:

"I'm fine, big brother. I'll be fine. Please take care."


	11. Bittersweet Times

As predicted, the fever considerably went down in twenty-four hours, yet still didn't fully disappear either. And, once again, someone had somehow gotten their hands on the precious information about the incident. Yet, all he had seen of it was a short extract from the news on TV and the title of a clickbait article: it was all every vague, so he wasn't really sure if it actually was about the IV incident or about a similar occurrence somewhere in the country.

What Iori was sure of, on the opposite, was that the person laying against the wall of this very room probably knew more about it than he did.

"Kimidori-san, I have to ask you something."

Her eyes stared right into his.

"Let me guess, it's about what happened to you on Monday?"

He sighed.

"Am I that obvious now?"

Kimidori picked the coldest glare she could probably had pulled out and the harsher tone he had ever heard from her.

"You're completely bent up on that stuff, Izumi. I've never see someone that stubborn on something they don't even really remember."

"I have to correct you on this, I do remember what happened. This is why I want to know why the perpetrator did this."

"Yeah, and what will it bring to you? Why aren't you just content with knowing what she did to you and that she's now in a place where she won't hurt anyone else? You're supposed to be recovering from getting shot and poisoned, not investigating as if you were some kind of detective. This isn't Ainana Police."

"I thought you didn't care about IDOLiSH7, Kimidori-san…"

"Come on, you're just trying to switch topics now. This isn't like you, or at least like the little I know of you."

His patience was wearing thin. Was it because of the lingering fragments of fever left in his system?

"Then tell me what happened on Monday, the name of perpetrator, why she did so and why you were there when it all happened… You're the one using the incident as an occasion to bring me down, Kimidori-san."

She rolled her eyes and let out what he interpreted as an upset sigh.

"I guess you're not wrong there… It doesn't change the fact you're one stubborn fella, but you're right, that's where we started."

Only then did Kimidori finally put on her serious matter face instead of fooling around with her littlest knowledge of who he was.

"Monday evening, near the end of visiting time, a high school student named Ruruka Aishi managed to make her way into your room. It's supposed you actually told her to enter, but such a thing nobody knows for sure. What we know is that she wanted to poison you with what she assumed was cyanide, but forgot her daddy's office was a doctor's office, so she picked something with a similar smell. Despite your injuries, you tried to fight her off. Emphasis on tried, as she just plugged the IV from your wrist and made you drink the thing anyway. You were out in seconds, probably because you, actually, can't properly take care of yourself once you have your head wrapped around something."

Wasn't she annoying with her petty slandering.

"Just cut to the point once and for all…!"

"I see someone's getting impatient… I'll let that slide on account of you being sick."

She finally came back to where he wanted her to be.

"I caught that girl as she escaped. Don't ask why I was near your room after leaving you, it's not relevant to what you want to know. She was screaming like a banshee, but I managed to understand she wanted to avenge some other idol band she loved and which got overshadowed by I7's popularity. She also screamed about how you always stole her happiness from her and all, like how you broke her comfort idols' career with I7 and how you were always better than her when you were in her school. Seems like she was one jealous delusional chick to me."

These name and situation… slightly rang something. He did remember a brown-haired, red-eyed girl staring at him every time he'd get a grade, back in middle school and in his former high school. He had gotten picked over her when he had entered the student council. And yet… he couldn't feel much more than that. All he felt was contempt and, perhaps, anger at someone willing to use violence with such depravity for such pointless, selfish matters.

"So this was a fluke, huh…"

Kimidori frowned.

"What do you mean? Hey, do I have to remind you she wanted to _kill you_?! What are you calling a fluke? I know her murder attempt was pathetic at best, but that doesn't make it an important crime! She could be charged with attempted murder!"

She was really starting to piss him off.

"Kimidori-san, before you start screaming like a horrified child, let me explain myself. I meant it in the sense the other members of IDOLiSH7 won't be endangered by this person. She only targeted me out of envy and doesn't have more reasons than that to attack the other members. This is all I wanted to make sure of."

"Yeah, and what tells you she doesn't have any history with Yotsuba-kun, or with your brother, or with anyone? It's not because she also wanted to kill you because you spent your time overshadowing her that she won't want to kill everyone else in your band. Or that anyone else won't want to do that. You're not the only one in this situation, Izumi-kun."

Had… Had she just made a point…?!

"In any case, Aishi has been neutralized, so she won't be a danger for any of us anymore. Moreover, I'm the only one truly vulnerable, as the other members are together most of the time and surrounded by security staff in public appearances. But you're right, Kimidori-san…"

Iori darkened his tone on purpose as he worded his previous realization.

"Who tells me you aren't here to take advantage of me as I'm down and counting on you for information?"

Kimidori instantly got angry.

"You have to be shitting me… Why would I want to do that?! You think it was funny for me to see you bleeding out from your wrist trying to apologize?! What image do you have of me?! The one of a psycho?!"

"You're not cleaner than anyone else who tried to speak to Yotsuba-san or me, Kimidori-san. I'd say you're even more suspicious, claiming you don't care about IDOLiSH7 yet knowing about a drama we played in. Don't you think you've just played yourself there? Next time you want to deceive me or anyone else, be consistent with your lie. You're just another fan. Don't consider yourself our friend or anything in the like."

Yet, all she did was sigh.

"That confirms what I thought. You only see me through the use I can possibly serve to you. I wonder if you don't see everyone in that little band of yours like pawns too. If I remember what my friend told me about I7 as a whole… Don't you see that red-haired boy, Nanase I think he's called, as a pawn too? A weapon, maybe? And, most of all…"

The coldness in her voice managed to still shake him off his certainties.

"Don't you consider yourself a pawn too, Izumi-kun?"

Why did that analogy hurt so badly? She was just a suspicious classmate. Nothing more. But also nothing less.

"I'm not a 'pawn' or anything in the like. Please stop thinking I also see you as less than what you are, which is a classmate, in case you didn't know."

"You're bad at lying. You don't see yourself as more than a gear who has some control over his situation! That's why you wanted to know if all your bandmates were in danger! Quit the façade, man, everybody can see you barely think of yourself as a person. Otherwise, you wouldn't have jumped to take a couple bullets for your brother. Am I wrong?"

He couldn't respond, for some reason. It just hurt to hear. To hear that she was, in fact, acutely right.

It was with weary eyes that Iori managed to look at his knowing-too-much classmate. Yet, instead of wearing a malicious amused grin as he expected her to have, she was just slightly smiling.

"It's crazy how you can be so sharp and honest to other people, yet so dishonest about yourself. Don't think you're as much as an open book as I may have showed you. You're tired and sick, your defences are down. I don't even have an objective behind these, except maybe for you to finally realize you should stop seeing yourself as a functional piece and more as a person with the responsibilities, rights and flaws which comes with being you. I don't pretend to know you that well, but it's somewhat painful to see you sulk so much on what happened. I'm no brother of you so I can't know Izumi-san's pain when it comes to what you did for him, but I'm sure of something, and that it's you won't recover properly or any quickly if you continue overthinking stuff. What's done is done. You can't change the course of the events which unfolded. It's cruel, but that's how things work. I'm sure you're still thinking of how you could have prevented yourself from getting injured so nobody would be in this situation."

"Why… Why are you telling me all of this, Kimidori-san? We're not friends. You shouldn't tell me all of this as if we knew each other…"

"Maybe we're not friends. Maybe you only Yotsuba-kun as such in this school. But you're still human, and humans deserve to think they're that. Human. You're only human, Izumi-kun. You're no calculating robot who isn't allowed to commit any mistakes and who's available twenty-four-seven. That's not how anyone in this world works. You've been here for like five days and you still look tired. You should consider resting one of those days, even if I'm sure it's hard when someone tried to kill you with pyrogens."

A knock echoed through the room as Kimidori got back onto her feet.

"It's time for me to leave. I'm sure your friends want to check up on you, and who could blame them? I want to see you beat me in every test soon. See ya."

He just responded a "goodbye" back while she left, but that time around, he wouldn't be left alone.

Indeed, as soon as Kimidori was out, Nanase made his way into the room. Honestly, Iori was surprised he hadn't seen the latter around more often in his hospital room: his brother had monopolised most of his attention, and for good reasons, but it was still a surprise that the clingy, spoiled Nanase hadn't been here more than that.

He had a smile on his face. It wasn't a giant grin either, but he was still smiling as if this was not such a big thing to see a friend hospitalized. He made his way to the bed after closing the door behind him.

"Hi Iori! How are you?"

And yet, he'd have lied had he said Nanase's cheerfulness wasn't needed at this very moment.

"Hello, Nanase-san…"

The question was a bit harder to reply to. If he followed Kimidori's advice… Should he say he felt saddened by everything? By feeling like a burden who had endangered everyone by realizing anybody could hit them now that they were more vulnerable than usual?

The red-haired boy sat on the chair next to the bed and put something into the younger idol's hands. Upon inspecting it, Iori realized it was a box of bunny-shaped cookies.

"Mitsuki made those for you! We figured hospital food was disgusting and that you probably weren't eating much, so he made those! We helped Mitsuki bake them! Well, as much as we could at least!"

Nanase's giggles relieved something weighing on his heart.

"I'll have to thank big brother for this… And I suppose all of I7 as well…"

"Don't forget the manager, Banri and the president! They also helped! Everybody did a little something! I mixed the batter, but eventually it got taken away from me because I was eating raw dough…"

He couldn't prevent a giggle from coming out of his mouth.

"Why am I not surprised…?"

"What's so funny?" Nanase replied in an almost-pout. "It got stolen from me by Sogo, and he didn't want to give it back to me after I swore not to eat the batter anymore!"

"Nanase-san, nothing would say you weren't actually going to eat more batter afterwards…"

"You don't trust me either, Iori?! That's mean! We share a unit together, you know!"

Nanase's laughter only translated his own amusement.

"It's good to see you amused though, Iori! Mitsuki's always saying you look sad or pained when he visits you, so I was starting to get very worried for you…"

"I… guess I do worry you guys a lot because of what happened… But repeating an apology in repeat won't make anything better, so… It's time for me to move on."

"Move on from what?"

This innocence, this naïveté was cute, and even Iori at its sharpest couldn't ignore it.

"Never mind, I think I only told my brother about this… What about I see if you didn't ruin the cookies by mixing the batter?"

"The batter was delicious, so they have to be… Did you just say I ruined them?!"

"Maybe, maybe not."

Nanase crossed his arms and pouted, before smiling again like a child who had just found his toy back.

"I missed that, Iori! It's not the same when you don't tease me for everything I do! Even if it means shaming me on my baking habits…"

"It's not teasing, it's just explaining to you why Osaka-san didn't want to entrust you with the batter… Nothing more, nothing less, just objective facts."

"You're always harsh aren't you… Anyway, what about these cookies? I can go first if you're scared of getting food poisoning so much!"

"These are for me, Nanase-san. It's only normal I go first, don't you think. Moreover… you've already gotten to have a pre-baked preview of them."

"Goddamn Iori…"

He picked one of the small cookies in his fingers and studied it. There were only two chocolate chips in it, forming the eyes of the small animal. He couldn't deny the biscuit was adorable, to the point he hesitated eating it, but a gift was a gift, and food was to be eaten.

There wasn't any surprise to be had when eating the cookies. They were, obviously, absolutely delicious: as expected from his brother's ground-breaking cooking skills. Without getting allowed too, Nanase still picked one and took a bite.

"They're so good! Mitsuki's really an amazing baker! And I think this one," he rambled as he pointed out to an oddly yellow-and-brown cookie, "is from Tamaki! This one," then he pointed one wearing glasses "is Yamato's, even if he told us not to tell you it was his!"

Nanase's finger stopped on a particular cookie. It had red beads instead of the chocolate chips all the others had for the eyes: they seemed to be either candies or dried fruits, maybe strawberries or raspberries. It was a tiny bit deformed compared to the rest of the small box: one of its ears was shorter than the other while one cheek looked slightly puffier.

"And this one is mine! Isn't it cute? I tried to make it as adorable as possible so you'd like it!"

Iori was left to ponder upon the small pastry.

"You… went all out for this one, didn't you, Nanase?"

"Yep! Why?" His tone dropped a bit on the following words. "You're gonna shame me again?"

But all Iori did was smile softly as he gazed at the cookie.

"…It's pretty cute..."

Nanase's face lit up with the biggest grin.

"You think?! I'm so happy you like it! Usually you don't admit it when things are cute…"

He looked away, feeling his face heat up.

"W-well sometimes you have to say what has to be said… Don't look too much into it…"

"I know, I know, I'm just teasing you Iori! I never get to usually because you're so calm and collected, so I'm just getting a bit out of the situation. It's that or else I get worked up and worried and…"

"Nanase-san. Don't stress over me like this. It's bad for your health."

The redhead's face softened upon hearing these words.

"You still have time and mind to think about me when you're in the hospital… You're really kind when you want it, you know, Iori…"

"You're making me out like someone better than I actually am, Nanase-san…"

Wait. Had he just said that out loud? To Nanase of all people? Quick, he needed a diversion!

"I-I meant that you shouldn't get too worked up over the situation! Everything will go right in order once I'm out of here! I'm thankful for you to have paid me a visit and made me forget about what I was dwelling on, that's it! Don't look into it!"

He was definitely radiating.

"Hey, Iori… You shouldn't get too worked up on that! You're gonna make your fever rise if you blush that hard!"

Iori just stared at him, embarrassed. It felt like getting an internal blue screen.

"You keep worrying for me all the time, like checking if I take of my body and if something is going to make my breathing worst. Now it's my time to take care of you!"

"Nanase-san… I can take care of myself properly… I don't need someone to do that for me…"

"Then, you can go outside on your own, right? Mitsuki says you're starting to feel claustrophobic in that room."

"…Let me correct that. I do need help for a few select things, like getting to that wheelchair you see in the corner and go outside."

Nanase shined him yet another bright smile.

"Then, what about I wheel you outside? The hospital's patio is pretty and it's sunny outside, it's a perfect time to go outside!"

"Then… You don't mind helping me to the chair?"

"Why would I? Come here!"


	12. Garden of Secrets

The first thing Iori noticed about the green spaces of the hospital was that they were blossoming and colourful: spring could be seen just by looking at the happy trees and bushes. Nanase kept saying this flower or this plant reminded him of I7: every time they walked past a vegetal of a different colour, he commented on how this was like somebody or somebody else.

"Look, Iori! These willows are pale purple, just like Sogo!"

"The colour of this tree's leaves reminds me of Yamato… Maybe it's because his hair is also dark green?"

"These wisterias are clear blue, kinda like Tamaki! I don't think they smell like King Pudding though…"

"Hey, Iori, you don't think these yellow tulips remind you of Nagi? They're so bright and so pretty, just like him!"

"These orange liliums are so bright, they're like Mitsuki! Maybe we should give him some liliums to thank him for taking care of our meals!"

"Ten-nii used to give me red peonies when we were kids… He said they reminded him of me and how bright I was. Just like these ones! These flowers always remind me of Ten and me because of this… You have similar memories with Mitsuki, Iori?"

To be honest, Iori had troubles seeing the faces and personalities of his colleagues and friends in the flowers and leaves Nanase was pointing at with an innocent finger. Yet, he kept listening, because seeing and hearing Nanase get excited for anything was smoothing him and his anxiety of not being able to do anything. In a way, it helped him forget how unhelpful and useless he was at the moment. Getting out of this room really was a good idea.

Nanase was, maybe, pushing his wheelchair a bit too fast. The ground of the small, pale grey paths going through the gardens wasn't as smooth as the older boy thought it was: in fact, it was quite bumpy, would the regular small jumps Iori made on it attest to. He was starting to have some problems holding the IV stand still connected to his wrist. Yet, Nanase didn't notice anything, happily pushing the chair forward as he happily chattered about flowers. Speaking of which, he had to tell him about something.

"Nanase-san."

"What's up, Iori? Got something to tell me?" he asked, eyes now fixated on the younger boy from the back of the wheelchair.

"We are in a garden filled with flowers in full bloom. You should be careful of pollen, Nanase-san. It's bad for you, and you know it."

"C'mon, Iori, how can you still find time to worry about something so minor? It'll be just fine if I don't stay here for too long! I made sure to take my inhaler if it got too bad anyway."

Iori sighed.

"You're reckless as always, Nanase-san. Still putting others before your health, I see…"

"I don't mind doing this, so don't mind it! You always remind me to take care of myself, you don't have to do that all the time, you know?"

Yet, despite this answer, something still bothered him.

"Can I ask you something, Nanase-san?"

"Sure! What are you curious about, Iori?"

"How can you be so happy about being in a hospital again? Shouldn't you be upset about being in a place like that again?"

Nanase looked confused, if not completely bewildered.

"Why are you asking that? It's not because I'm used to seeing this hospital that I should be sad or upset or anything. Sure, it's familiar and I've been here plenty of times, but it proves I can stand these flowers perfectly without you having to worry for me, Iori! Plus, the medical staff is super nice with me, so I'm happy to see them without being a patient for once!" he replied, eyes gazing up at the sky then at the building, before waving hello to another patient and to a nurse who was pushing the wheelchair of an old man.

What a weird way to see things. Weren't hospitals places of frustration, pain and sadness? It never was a happy time to see a relative in the hospital, or his brother having broken something, or a classmate he had been tasked to bring homework and lessons to during their missed times from school… There was nothing happy or soothing about hospitals.

So why was Nanase so… happy? Why wasn't he seeing the situation the way he did?

"Then… How do you feel about this place?"

"Well, huh…" Nanase seemed to hesitate in his answer. "I'd say it's not too bad? I never felt too trapped in here. The garden is pretty, and when I was a kid, Ten-nii and I used to play here once the doctor had finished my check-ups… I made friends at the hospital too! I never saw it as a prison, but rather like a place I had to go to often. Sometimes it was getting boring and tiresome, but that's it!"

His eyes softened, and his smile turned small, almost soothingly so.

"But you hate it, right, Iori? I guess it's not the same as it was with me… You don't have anything good to recall to when you're here… You mind telling me how you see things?"

Iori sighed. He hadn't exactly thought of why he disliked being in this place and, as such, wasn't exactly ready to tell Nanase about his feelings and experiences with it either. What was the point, if he didn't have precise, interesting information to tell him?

"I'm not sure my point of view holds any solid interest for you, Nanase-san. I don't have any solid thinking to give you either. I just… didn't have the time to think about it."

Everything with these words screamed like somebody else was taking over. Or was it just his usual, cool façade breaking? As long as no fan was there, maybe it was okay… Maybe it was okay to let some of this thoughts leak from his mind.

"What do you mean by 'solid thinking'?" Nanase asked with a hint of a snicker in his voice. "I don't ask you to write me an essay! I just want to know what you feel, because you're my friend, not your teachers!"

Iori let out an amused sigh. Of course Nanase wouldn't care about constructed argumentation and elaborated theses: he'd just want to know what his friends felt like.

"I guess it can't hurt to tell you about it, Nanase-san… Please," he replied as he pointed to a deserted, calm, rather isolated spot in the gardens, could you bring me this way? I don't want the other patients to hear about what I have to say."

"Roger!"

Nanase, who had slowed down when he had started to speak about his experiences, nodded and gripped the handles of the wheelchair tighter. Before Iori knew it, he was rolling fast once again, clutching his IV stand so it didn't get go too far away from his wrist. And yet, this was such a rush of energy and happiness running through his veins: he was smiling like an idiot as they ran through the flowers and the grass of spring. Nanase was sometimes laughing lightly, still saying hello to people he recognized.

As he got wheeled around in the enclosed safe space that was the hospital's garden for patients, Iori realized how much he had missed seeing something other than white walls, grey floors, his room and its bathroom, artificial lights and a TV screen. Seeing the outside word, the sun's light on everybody around him and his skin, the light wind and the smell of flowers, was a true breath of fresh air. A very welcome breath of fresh air: he really was starting to feel claustrophobic inside his room. It felt like actually living again, even if he was still bound to his current condition by the IV in his wrist, by the wheelchair, by his hospital clothes, by his bandages and by the bracelet around his other wrist displaying some medical information on him.

Eventually, Nanase went breathless from running while pushing a wheelchair. As expected from such a reckless, carefree individual who loved having fun and spending time with his friends, Iori thought as he tried thinking of a way to word his scold without sounding too mean or too harsh. He didn't want to ruin the best time he had had in almost a week by sounding like… his usual self.

Truly, how could had Nanase said he was _kind_? He was no Mitsuki Izumi. He was no Tsumugi Takanashi. He was no Riku Nanase. He wasn't _kind_. He was harsh, sharp, cold, cool and mature. Everyone else in IDOLiSH7 would have fit the adjective "kind" better than he did. How could someone say he was kind when most of the people he knew were also around his brother? He wasn't such a good person. A part of him even whispered how he was selfish and manipulative because he thought in his goals and "duties" too much.

No, truly, with all the analysis he could do on the subject matter, Iori Izumi wasn't a good person.

Yet, nobody had found out yet.

"Iori? Ioooooooriiiiiiiii ?"

Nanase's voice broke him off from his train of thoughts, waving his hands in front of his face. He had gone into the pit of his mind again, overthinking things at the wrong moment again. He truly needed to work on his badly-timed brain again.

"Earth to Iori! Respond!"

"P-pay attention to your breathing, Nanase-san! You were breathless!"

As he spat these panicked words, Nanase just started laughing before looking at him from his side.

"Yeah, that was two minutes ago! We've arrived there like… five minutes ago, maybe? You've just been spacing out until now! It happens often, when you're alone?"

"It… it does, lately."

For some reason, it was as if his feelings were speaking by themselves. Maybe it was the panic of the situation and the embarrassment he had cast upon himself that had untied his tongue.

"I don't have much to do lately. It hurts to even go to the bathroom by myself because of my leg, so I spend most of my time in bed trying to keep myself busy. I'm not as exhausted as I was when I had just gotten shot, so I… have too much time on my hands and too much energy to sleep through most of the day."

"Why don't you ask a nurse to wheel you around the hospital, Iori?" Nanase asked. "I used to do that when I couldn't walk for a reason or the other and got tired of my room."

"I don't want to bother anyone with something as petty as feeling tired of a room and a bed. This is my fault for getting into this situation anyway, and my brother feels more comfortable knowing I respect the doctors' orders of bedrest. By the way… Don't tell him about this, Nanase-san. I can't allow myself to worry big brother even more."

Iori was looking at the ground, not even crossing arms, unable to look at someone else in the eyes as soon as his feelings spilled out from his mind. Yet, when he managed to at least glance in the direction of his friend, all he saw were two red eyes filled with compassion and a kind, comforting smile.

"Iori, that's not petty at all! Everyone would go crazy if they were in your place! Heck, I would! Staying at the same place for days would bore anyone in a day. That's why I always asked to go outside, when I was a kid… Your patience impresses me, in fact… I couldn't have lasted that long without trying to escape."

"Other patients need the already busy staff more than I could ever do. It's only normal of me to give them the priority over wanting to see something else that than forsaken room," his tongue slipped at the worst time, "even if I've seen it for days without any escape possible!"

Nanase looked taken aback. Had he scared him by getting upset? He shouldn't had burst out like that… He had to do something, quick…

"Hey, Iori… That's why you don't see things the same way I do, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"You seemed surprised when I told you I didn't mind going to the hospital to visit an injured friend, so…" the red-haired boy replied softly. "I came to guess you were sick of being here and being in the same place all the time. And I guess you're not used to hospitals as much as I am, so there's that too…"

He put a hand on the younger idol's shoulder.

"So, Iori… Do you mind venting that to me? I'm sure you'll feel better once you do. I used to be able to vent to Ten-nii, or to my friends, so I think you need to let that out and stop bottling up all your frustration…"

"You…" Iori's voice trailed off, hesitant, relieved, "Don't mind if I…"

"Of course I don't mind! I wouldn't ask you otherwise!"

Iori took a deep breath in, breathed out, and gathered his thoughts.

"I feel trapped inside an aseptic, white cage, like I was trapped in a space where life is only supposed to be temporary. There is nothing living except for me in it. There's nothing to see, hear, touch and feel in this room, because there's nothing in it. It's deeply impersonal and it'll never be any personal, to me or to anyone else. It's not because the clothes I wore on the day I was shot are hung around the room, or because my parents have given me flowers decorating the nightstand that it'll feel any closer to home…"

He was way, way more homesick that he had thought before.

He wanted to see his house again. He wanted to see the plushies he had on his bed at home, the pastel wallpaper and bedsheets, the old wooden floor, the familiar smell of his dad's cooking and of his brother's pastries… He wanted to hear the familiar tunes of Zero's songs blasting from Mitsuki's room as he danced on them. He wanted his parents embarrass him in front of the clients of the bakery again, help in the kitchens as much as he could, make them proud with his grades, get patted on the shoulder for his good deeds and get asked about what he wanted to do later.

He wanted to see the dorm again. He wanted to see his "cool and sharp" bedroom and the chest hidden under the bed where he put all his Usamimi collectibles and keychains, the messier rooms of his bandmates, the kitchen filled with the appetizing smell of his brother's cooking, the fridge constantly filled with King Puddings. He wanted to watch Nikaido's Roomba escape from his room to the common spaces, to try helping his brother with tasks, to be asked by Yotsuba to do his homework in his stead, to listen to Osaka ask if everyone was fine, to hear Rokuya scream in front of his anime, to make sure Nanase felt fine, to plan stuff behind everyone's backs with the manager.

He prevented himself from tearing up in front of someone before resuming.

"I start to feel like I'm never going to escape this room. The last time I did so, I got poisoned and humiliated. I threw the band into jeopardy again. My injuries are barely getting better, and it still hurts to walk on my left leg. It still hurts to move my shoulder. But… Can I really complain, when everyone else around me suffers because of what I did? I never wanted my brother to feel so bad about it, and for everyone to get so worried for me. All I can is swallow my pride and wait patiently. So I… wait patiently for something to get better…"

His eyes were watering. Not a good thing. Quick, quick!

"I wait for everything to get better so I can escape this place and be of some use again. I don't want to just watch everything happen from a bed, behind the screen of a TV, of a computer or of a phone. This… isn't how things should be. I should be proactive, not lie around as if I served no purpose!"

Goddammit. He was crying. Tears ran down his face as he clenched his fists, looked away, tried not to get Nanase to spot the ugly, ugly trails on his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, this is just… selfish of me… I shouldn't be saying that as if it was of any importance… You've lived that countless times before I did and yet… I'm whining like a child who got punished rightfully… You have so much better things to do, Nanase-san…"

He got up, only to clench his teeth when the wound in his leg shot up bullets of pain again, forcing him to sit down again.

Surprised invaded his entire brain when he got pulled in an embrace.

"Iori… This isn't selfish or anything… You just wanted to protect your brother, and I'm sure I'd have done that for Ten-nii if it had happened to us… You feel asphyxiated here because you never get out of your room because of your injuries, and that's why you feel so bad…"

He shouldn't have cried, but Iori just opened the gates and let it flow.

"Iori… You really needed to let some steam go… Keeping all of this bottled up must have hurt… You don't have to always act coolly and sure of you, you're still a teen after all, and we all have these moments in our life, right? You're a good kid, Iori. You don't need to put yourself in an adult's shoes yet."

Iori finally gathered the courage to face his friend again, tears still running, tears he tried whipping out with his arm. Nanase's soft expression helped him not completely hide away in shame and misery.

"That's where you're wrong, Nanase-san… I'm not a good person. I just do what I have to do. That includes… Not doing that…"

Red brows frowned accompanied by a pout.

"What tells you you're not a good person, Iori? You took a bullet for your brother! You always put other people before you, and that's why you feel so bad right now! You never want us to take care of you because you don't want people to worry, thinking they have other stuff to do! If that doesn't tell you you're a good person, I don't see what does!"

He felt some of his sass come back.

"Really…? Then you tend to forget how our conversations usually go, Nanase-san… I'm harsh and cold. Not… kind. You're painting me as selfless when I'm selfish…"

"That's wrong, that's all wrong, and you know it! Yeah, you're harsh and you tend to make fun of me because you're more mature than me, but you're not a bad person at all! I… got to understand you did that to make me better. That's how you show your affection, Mitsuki told us when we asked why you always seemed to make fun of me… I even like that, in fact, because I never got to have friends like you so… Stop thinking of yourself that badly, Iori!"

The boy felt a smile slowly appear on his face.

"Thank you… for listening to me, Nanase-san. Thank you for helping me escape the cage even if it was for a few minutes."

"Oh, it's been two hours, Iori. Glad I got to help you, though, for once that I can!"

"Y-your breathing, Nanase-san! You're not supposed to stay exposed to pollen for so long!"

"Don't panic, it's okay! There is no pollen in here. In fact, the only plant…"

Nanase's gaze turned to a lone, black rose surrounded by other flowers of its kind in an array of colours. Despite the sheer coincidence of the situation, and how cheesy the situation was, the words coming from the older boy's mouth still made him feel better.

"And this flower reminds me of you, Iori! It's unique but it completes every other flower next to it."


	13. Little White Lies

"Manager!" Mitsuki suddenly screamed in the gardens, finger pointing at a tranquil spot surrounded by bushes of flowers.

"What is it, Mitsuki-san?" She turned her head towards his finger.

"It's Riku and Iori back there, no?"

The blonde woman stopped in her tracks and looked in the direction of his arm, only to gasp in surprise.

"You're right, Mitsuki-san, it's indeed Iori-san and Riku-san! I thought Iori-san couldn't go outside, though…"

"I thought so too," he replied rubbing his chin, "but it seems like he found a solution to get out of his bedroom. Honestly, that's good for him!"

"How so?" Tsumugi asked. "I thought Iori-san was on bedrest…"

"He was, but he's starting to feel trapped and a tad claustrophobic. He doesn't like feeling like he's stuck somewhere against his will."

She looked down as they resumed walking.

"Something's wrong, Manager? You look sad all of a sudden."

"I…" She hesitated. "I don't feel like I know Iori-san that well… I should know more than this, so I can care for him well when he's in such a situation, but…"

"Believe me, Manager, you're overthinking this just as much as Iori's overthinking what happened. He doesn't need a manager right now, he needs medical staff and friends to take care of him without any professionalism involved. To be honest, he's too professional when it comes to us, so it's good for him to see Riku and the others as something else than workmates."

"But what about his claustrophobia?"

"That? Oh, Riku's taking care of it right as we speak! All Iori needs is to see something other than his bedroom, these days. I know he'd tell you he needs to do something, to work, but you should probably not let him do that. We need him to rest, not to overwork himself because he'll overestimate how much he's 'lazing' around."

Mitsuki's eyes followed his brother and the latter's closest friend in I7 go back inside, all the while hiding with the manager behind a bush, hoping not to get spotted. He could have sworn he saw dried tear trails on Iori's face, yet the smile he saw under them was in complete contrast with the idea he had in mind. He couldn't help but wonder about what these two had discussed and done together for him to have such a confused guess at it…

"Actually, I don't think I understand Iori that well, Manager… Every time I think I know how he feels, I discover something new, and this entire taking the bullet thing just conveyed it even more. I feel like I need an entire day of just discussing how he feels with him, just so I can understand him."

"Mitsuki-san… I'm sure you know Iori-san more than you think you do! You've known him since he was born, you've got to know him well, right? I don't pretend like I understand Iori-san well either, but I'm sure he'd tell you about anything if you asked for it…"

They got out of their improvised hiding spot and resumed their walk.

"You're not going to visit Iori-san," she asked surprised, "Mitsuki-san?"

"I'm gonna let him be with Riku for a bit," he replied smiling. "he needs a company other than me. I've been all over him lately, I'm sure he's tired of my big bro stress! Especially since I…"

Oh no.

"…Never mind."

Tsumugi looked instantly concerned.

"Mitsuki-san? Is something wrong?"

"Ah, huh, I… I just remembered what happened last night. I sent Iori a bunch of text messages and it probably upset him because he hates it when people get worried for him. Nothing else!"

But her eyes didn't lose in their intensity.

"Mitsuki-san… I can tell something else's wrong. And… I've been meaning to ask you if it was just me, but you look tired too. Did something happen?"

He looked away before sighing. He was spotted, wasn't he? There was nowhere to run and no use in doing so. As long as Iori didn't know, it'd be fine.

"Well… I've had some nightmares lately about Iori and what happened on Saturday. They're always sad and I always feel anxious when I wake up from them, but last night's one takes the cake… I… I dreamt that Iori had gone missing, only for the police to find his body days later… We were all… crying in front of it… And… And…"

He choked on short sobs, sniffling. He really cried way too easily.

"I remember that, instead of that shitty guy… The killer was the fan who tried to poison him…"

The manager stood there, unable to do much as to make him feel any better. He didn't blame her: she had sworn to be professional in her relations with them, and she was an only child. She probably didn't understand how deep his worries went, but he didn't blame her. She couldn't know. He wished he couldn't have known.

Maybe that was why it hurt so badly. Mitsuki had, admittedly, never thought even once Iori could truly endanger himself. He knew his brother could be strangely stubborn at times because he thought he had duties to accomplish, but he never thought Iori would actually jump in front of the bullet. He thought he would never have to see his own brother drenched in his own blood. That entire situation seemed to just be his worst nightmare, but in no way possibly real: it was now his reality and the aftermath of it was bitter.

Tsumugi looked pained too.

"I'm worried for Iori-san too… He hasn't been the same since Saturday, and I wonder what's going through his head right now… It's like he's only half of himself… He doesn't even insist on letting him help me…"

That surprised Mitsuki more than it should had.

"Iori stopped insisting on helping you? When did that happen? What help?"

"It was on Monday, I think… That's when Iori-san stopped asking me about letting him help me with the group and started asking how everyone was doing instead…" She then jumped. "Oh no! I told Iori-san I'd keep this a secret!"

"What he helped you with isn't important right now, I just wonder why he suddenly stopped asking you when he should have wanted to be useful at any cost…"

The more Mitsuki thought about it, the less it made sense. Iori was all about being useful and putting his extraordinary skills to use. Laziness was out of the way: he was a hard worker at his core. Shyness was out of the way too: if the manager was so surprised that he'd stopped asking all of a sudden, it meant that he had previously insisted and was invested in it before the incident. What could it all be about, then? The more he thought about it, the more it worried him.

He had once told Nagi, back when I7 had yet to fully debut, or before they had any fame at all, that he didn't understand Iori and didn't know what the latter could possibly think. Being part of the same group made them get closer, but it still didn't help: in this situation, Mitsuki didn't understand his brother and his motivations at all.

"I need to speak with Iori about this soon, once I speak about it with Riku. I'll tell you if I have anything new, Manager."

Back in this one hospital room, back in a familiar situation. This time, there was no IV: that was one very good piece of news. It meant more freedom and the recovery advancing. And this was the best thing Mitsuki could have learned about during this shitty week. The situation was finally, definitely, getting better and would only get better from there.

He noticed some slight changes. The smell of the room had traded aseptic for something a bit more personal and human. The flowers were still on the bedside, right next to a familiar-looking mobile phone. And, most of all: instead of a wheelchair, there was a pair of crutches.

"Good afternoon, big brother."

Iori was as stoic as he (usually) always was. His voice had regained its strength prior to the incident: another good sign.

"Hi, Iori! How are you today?"

"I'm doing just fine. What about you?"

"I'm great! Today's been a great day at the studio, we got a new invitation to feature on a show, and we managed to quiet down the rumours about us."

"This is very good to hear. I wish I was more aware of what everyone is doing, but…"

His face showed surprise before he looked away and cleared his throat.

"Never mind. There is no 'but' there."

Mitsuki smirked.

"Really? You're slipping a lot these days, Iori. You're sure you've got nothing on your mind?"

"This is an oddly specific way to respond to the present situation, big brother. It's like you have something on your own mind."

These snarky eyes just stared at him. He was busted, but he had busted his brother before, and that was what mattered the most at the moment.

He abandoned his smirk for a more serious face.

"Okay, real talk there Iori. I talked with the manager about you yesterday, and… You're behaving weirdly, lately."

Iori's face sure distorted as soon as he heard that.

"What do you mean by 'behaving weirdly', big brother? I've not noticed any major change with me. Well, except for the fact I got injured, that is."

"The manager told me you stopped asking to help her, and I thought that was weird because it came out of nowhere. It's just unlike you to change your ideas so quickly, Iori."

He always insisted on his sibling's name, as if that would help getting the answers out of him. Was it threatening or was it just insistence? He didn't know exactly.

"I guess this seemed to come out of nowhere because I never explained why I stopped asking. It's not that hard, really. I've just been… busy elsewhere, shall I say."

"And what motivated you to stop asking? Once again, it's out of character coming from you, Iori."

"People kept telling me to rest, so I thought I'd do myself a favour by stepping back for a bit, especially since I need to stay neutral towards most things, so I can be of good advice. It serves no use to me or anyone else for me to get obsessed about something. As such, it was best for me to stay behind."

While these were typical Iori words, the second part of his explanation was… much more peculiar.

"Moreover, I am of no use to IDOLiSH7 at the moment. I only put us in a dire situation and didn't manage to prevent the information of spewing. I should had been more cautious to the assailant from Wednesday. It's been a week, after all."

Mitsuki was used to Iori managing to distance his feelings from the objective truth. That was why he was so good at determining what he did right and what he did wrong. However, the tone in his voice wasn't that of an analyst giving a statement on what he kept an eye on. It was the tone of someone who had doubted themselves over and over again, who blamed themselves for something.

"As such, I don't deserve to advice the manager on anything for now. If I prove I'm reliable, I'll help again, but for now I'll just be closer to a burden. That's… that's simply the truth, big brother. That's why I stopped insisting. It's just something I have to do. Don't worry for me, I've overcome this."

But tiny words betrayed how he truly felt.

"At least, I think so…"

All Mitsuki could do in response to this was to sit down on the bed right next to his brother and take him in his arms.

"Iori… You're beating yourself over your forced hiatus again. We told you not to do that, right? We don't hold anything against you. After all, we insisted for you to take your rest. You deserved it, you're always working so hard for everything. You're very reliable, you've just been incapacitated. To be honest, I wish I could be happy about you finally resting, but if it has such a negative effect on your moral and vision of yourself, it's not good at all. It's meant for you to feel better, not for you to feel like you've failed us when you haven't!"

"But, brother…"

"Hush. There's no but, Iori. You've worked hard to recover quickly, and you're right next to the exit of this room. Just wait for a couple days, okay? Everything is fine and will be fine. I know you need to feel useful to feel good, because that's always how you've measured your own worth, but that's not how you should do."

But tiny words be trayed how he truly felt.

"At least, I think so…"

Iori gave his older brother a little, sad smile.

"I suppose that's how I've always seen things… I analyse everything thoroughly as to make the best decisions. I've always thought of everyone as such, perhaps, but it's been hard to do that as time continued to flow. I've never seen you as such, big brother, but now I can barely see anyone for their skills, qualities and flaws… Kimidori-san was right, when she told me I only saw myself and the others as their utility."

He sniffled.

"But that changed. That changed when I started to befriend the other members of I7. I can't see Nanase-san or anyone as merely their strengths and weaknesses anymore. It'd be awful of me. So… why do I see myself as no more than that? Than what I'm good and bad at?"

Mitsuki could have sworn he had never seen his brother being so open about his thought process and it felt weird, painful and soothing all at the same time. He hadn't been wrong, then. He had finally understood how his brother felt. And, as such, he could find a way to help him out of his chains of bad feelings.

"I feel so distanced from myself and I don't even know why I'm spilling all of this… I thought it was because I was tired, then because I was sick, but…"

"It's just that you've kept this all bottled up, Iori," Mitsuki replied during a moment where his brother's voice trailed off. "You're just letting it all out suddenly because the situation is making it possible. There's no fan to please and no society to satisfy, so you're just letting it out because otherwise you'd implode. There's nothing bad with venting, you know?"

"Big brother… Why do I always see myself as no more than a pawn…?"

"Because that's how you've conditioned yourself, Iori… You've seen people treat you as such because they just wanted to use you for your skills, so you just thought you could be of some help if you put your feelings and yourself on the side. That's why you never think of yourself first, no matter how many times you'll try to deny that."

Mitsuki clutched his brother against him, as if he tried to tear his doubts and self-hatred out of him.

"Riku told me you thought of yourself as someone harsh and poisonous. You're not. You're a teen who's doing his best and who works hard as to please others. It's time to think of yourself and stop thinking you're no more than what people see in you. You're so much more than a pawn and so much more than your abilities. Iori, if you won't love yourself, then we'll all do until you realize how wonderful you are."

He felt arms give the hug back.

"It's time to let that go, don't you think? It's time to abandon the black thoughts and the overanalyses. Take a few days of rest until you go back from hiatus, okay? We'll be waiting for you and we'll always be with you. You're worth so much to us… I don't want to lose you like I almost did last week…"

Iori replied in an almost unheard whisper, tears running down his cheeks for the nth time in the week, the quietest of thanks. And that was enough. That was enough of an answer to a concerned Mitsuki acting, for the first time, entirely on brother instinct.


	14. Return to the Past

One thing was sure: everyone sure got excited (or relieved) when he announced the news to them. It was with a wide grin (and past tears of relief having flowed from his eyes) that Mitsuki had told everyone in the dorm about it. It also reassured them, because their schedule was starting to get full again, now that the "one of our members was shot by a random psycho in the street" story had calmed down thanks to other scandals here and there.

Indeed, staying at the hospital had been impossible for the past two days: they were all busy with shows and auditions. They didn't get a single second to actually breathe between jobs and activities. Yet, he had somehow gotten the time to announce the news to his bandmates, but not to their manager.

They were all in their common living room, finally able to catch their breath.

"Guys, thank you for your hard work!" the manager entered the room, a wide smile plastered on her face.

"As always," Yamato prided himself (and the others), holding his usual can of beer.

"Manager," Riku immediately got excited, "you heard the news?!"

"I'm afraid I haven't, Riku-san…" she replied exhibiting a slightly embarrassed expression. "Do you guys mind telling me?"

Mitsuki couldn't retain his grinning impulsions inside. He was even more excited than Riku was at the idea of telling her about what he had just learnt from his parents.

"Manager," Tamaki entered the excitement game, "sit down, cause you're never gonna believe it!"

"That is perhaps a bit exaggerated, Tamaki-kun…" Sogo reacted.

Nevertheless, Tsumugi sat down with them around the table.

"Mitsu sure is excited to tell the manager about it, huh," Yamato commented, smirking at his unit partner.

"Everyone would go _doki doki_ for this news!" Nagi added another layer of hype.

"You really are happy about this, aren't you, guys…" Sogo said, keeping his calm when nobody else really made an effort to do so.

"Of course we are," Yamato responded, despite the fact he looked chiller than anyone besides Sogo.

"You're not excited, So-chan?"

"I am obviously very happy about this," he replied, "but I do not think all this commotion is necessary… Plus, the manager is getting seriously confused."

They all looked at their manager, who did look completely lost in their discussion. For them, it had been so obvious, they had forgotten she had no idea about what they had learned before she entered the conversation.

"Can I… know what you guys are talking about…?" she asked, completely flushed.

"Mitsu," Yamato prompted his comrade, "tell the manager the news."

"Sure thing!"

He really couldn't contain his excitement: he just looked forward to her joy once he would tell her about it.

"Today, the hospital staff told my parents Iori would be out by tomorrow! Isn't that _awesome_?!"

Tsumugi's face first showed surprise, then turned into what they could all only describe as immense happiness (or relief, considering she was still Iori's manager). At first, she was stunned and speechless, but she eventually spoke up about her feelings.

"Oh my… That's wonderful!" exited her mouth.

"That means Ichi's back here tomorrow. Y'all know what it means, guys."

"King Pudding!" Tamaki screamed in excitement.

"A special meal?" Riku asked, visibly interested.

Everyone more or less stared at him with different reactions, including a "you're serious?" from some of them.

"What? Iori'll probably want to eat something better than hospital food!"

"Riku-kun has a point," Sogo came forward. "We at least owe this to Iori-kun."

"It means we need to make the dorm as friendly to him!" Tsumugi announced with confidence dripping from her mouth.

Even Mitsuki, who everyone knew had an extensive knowledge of Iori's condition by that point, had some troubles processing what she could have meant.

"What do you mean by that, Manager?" he asked her, lost.

"As far as I know," she replied raising a finger as to strengthen her words, "Iori can't walk properly yet. We need to make as so it's not hard for him to move around the dorm without help from anyone!"

Everyone got quiet for a few moments, letting the information sinking in.

"Iori can't… walk properly?" Nagi was the first to speak up. "Why?"

"Isn't Iori-kun entirely recovered?" Sogo asked with a tint of worry in his voice.

"How's that possible?" Riku yelled. "I know Iori has an injured leg, but I thought it wasn't a big deal!"

"Mikki," Tamaki looked at his elder, "that's true?"

But Mitsuki didn't have a set response to this. At best, his thoughts were the closest to Riku's reaction. He quickly sent a text message to his parents, "Iori can't walk by himself?!", hoped to get an answer really fast. They hadn't mentioned anything in the like.

"N-no… I thought Iori's biggest injury was the wound in his abdomen, not the one in his leg…"

"Wait," Nagi asked again, "I thought Iori was shot in the shoulder, not in the leg!"

Mitsuki gulped.

"Actually, that wasn't entirely right…" The guilt was clutching his throat again. "Iori actually got shot three times… He just didn't tell anyone but me, the manager and probably Riku about it. But… I thought his leg wound was the least important of them!"

Tsumugi looked sideways, as if she had shot Iori herself.

"It may have changed since I last spoke to Iori-san's doctors, which was this morning… They didn't mention him getting out of the hospital, but they mentioned he still had pain in his leg from the injury… I think they mentioned he'd need crutches, but that was all they had time to tell me."

The hype had transformed into concern again.

"Goddammit… Even when it gets better it gets worse again…" Mitsuki swore under his breath.

Nagi, who was sitting next to him, patted his shoulder. When the smaller man looked at his friend, the latter was shining him a small smile.

"Mitsuki," he told him almost in a soothing voice, "things are still better! Iori'll be back tomorrow, we just have to adapt for a bit!"

"Nagi's right. Cheer up, Mitsu. Ichi wouldn't want to see you like that anyway," Yamato added.

"Yeah! I'll even do my homework without complaining if that makes it better…" Tamaki said.

That got small laughs from the different members.

"May I add," Sogo told him, "you will be able to take care of him more easily, Mitsuki-san. It is nowhere as grievous as it was last week."

"And we'll all be here for Iori too! There's nothing to worry about!" Riku finished, grinning.

The sudden optimism from realizing _it would eventually get fine_ contaminated him too.

"Guys… You're right! Let's make this dorm crutch-friendly!"

Everyone approved in a single "yeah!".

They had spent the evening writing down a list of things they needed to do before Iori joined them again. The plan was simple: make sure everything on this list was done before four in the afternoon, time at which Banri and the president would go to the hospital get their missing member back. There was only to put it in play now.

Tsumugi seemed to have been the most excited of them all about cleaning a dorm and moving furniture around: she had her hair in a bun and wore seemingly old clothes with paint stains on them, saying "we can do it!" as she waved them a confident smile. Not even Mitsuki himself looked that prepared for the great cleaning.

To be honest, this part wasn't the most exciting thing about his brother finally getting out of the hospital. Quite the opposite: cleaning wasn't inherently fun. Yet, he decided he wouldn't let the tedious sides of the plan eat his motivation away: he decided to stay motivated and focused on how this was going to be a fun time with his friends as they work their hardest to make it the best comeback possible.

It seemed to be everyone else's vision of the situation, if they excluded Yamato's classic "I'll let you kids do it" and Tamaki insisting on always having King Pudding on him whatever he decided to do. Yet, they both still put a hand in it, because between Mitsuki's screaming and the manager's insistence, their leader shrugged his laziness off and Tamaki settled for a little less pudding.

(He still managed to sneak some with him anyway).

The first step was to be careful about the halls. They had to be clean as so nobody could trip on anything while going through them: if someone could already trip on foot, nobody could guarantee the safety of the floor for someone on crutches. They also needed to make sure the floor wasn't slippery in any way: they didn't want Iori to get a second leg injury, after all. That meant to be careful with anything which could make the floor slippery: liquids, pieces of fabric lying there…

As such, they began by cleaning the entire hall, making sure there was nothing potentially hazardous laying around which could bring anyone else into a hospital. They spent what felt like a couple hours scrubbing the floor and making sure it was dry before stepping on it. It was tedious, but it had to be done, so at last they stopped complaining and just did the thing.

Next up was the bathroom, a place where the floor was naturally wet and where it was hard to go from the shower to the bath without getting wet. If Mitsuki had to remember another thing from having a cast and using crutches aside from unpractical the entire ordeal was, it was how annoying it was not to get your cast or bandages wet because it would partly, if not entirely, ruin them. They had to be especially careful with the bathroom and how it was going to be used.

At first, they had thought of more towels, but someone could still trip on them, so it was decided against it. Eventually, they settled to add more places to sit on and make space for crutches. They couldn't afford refurnishing the entire room for a few days anyway, so they just hoped they could trust Iori enough with being careful.

The other rooms only required minor adjustments, like making sure there was a stool if needed and enough space to move. By that point, they had thought so much of how to render the bathroom usable, it was only a formality to make any other common space accessible. Nagi attempted to use the occasion to decorate said spaces with Magical Cocona merchandise, to which Mitsuki retaliated with some effective smacking and a "oh no you won't!".

The kitchen had been a little more of an enigma. One could access the fridge on crutches if needed, right? Tamaki took advantage of the fridge checking to review his stock of pudding right as Yamato attempted to take advantage of the very same fridge checking to steal a King Pudding. It didn't end well for Yamato, but it sure made everyone besides him and Tamaki laugh.

Eventually, only Iori's room was left, and they didn't know if they even had the right to violate his privacy. Without much discussion, Mitsuki was picked as the sole person who had anything remotely similar to a right to enter what was apparently such a forbidden space. The list of reasons as to why it could only be him was put together very quickly: he was Iori's brother, he had known him for the longest, he must have been in Iori's room at least _once_ at their original home, he couldn't have an unwelcome surprise, Iori probably wouldn't mind his brother going through his room if needed. Mitsuki, confronted with what were feeble arguments but agreeing with the sentiment, could only bow to their pleas and enter the room himself.

At first, Iori's room was perfectly fine. Everything was neatly organized: there wasn't a single thing on the floor which shouldn't have been there, all papers were at their place, there was nothing much to say. It simply felt like the perfect room, with nothing else to say about it. In fact, Mitsuki wasn't sure why the guys had insisted on checking this room to make it crutch-friendly: it already was friendly to everyone and everything which could find a use to it. He had nothing to do to make it any better… Except for one thing

As such, he just exited it, shrugged his shoulders and told everyone "there's nothing to improve, guys". The puzzling he could read on their faces quickly gave stead to a general laughter. How could they had thought Iori's room had to be improved? His shtick was _perfection_. He would obviously make it perfect, right? That was, until Mitsuki had a realization.

He kept quiet about it until everyone else almost dispatched. They had an hour left before it was four o'clock, after all. Once everyone was neither in the corridor nor near the bedroom, he sneaked into it. There was one thing Iori couldn't have thought of when he had gotten shot. Something which wouldn't be able to access no matter his best tries without hurting himself again.

"Guys, I need your help for something."

When the car parked again in front of the dorm, after what felt like an eternity, the hype rose feverishly once again. However, despite everyone being excited and the excitement being so thick anyone could get infected by it, all the members insisted for Mitsuki to be the first one to greet the missing member back. At first, he wished everyone else would just be with him, but the insistence was too strong and, admittedly, he really wanted to be the first to greet his brother back into the group.

He was right in front of the door when it opened, Banri and the president making way for a teenage boy indeed on crutches. He seemed strangely intimidated at first, not raising his eyes, until he finished struggling taking off his shoes. Only then did he look up, before a sheepish smile lit his face.

" _Welcome home, Iori!"_

It wasn't their actual home but saying he didn't feel like home at the dorm too would have been a lie from Mitsuki. He hoped his brother felt the same way. The other members followed through, appearing one by one in the corridor, until eventually everyone was just standing in the hall. Everyone had their word to say, but first, they had to move somewhere else where it'd feel less crowded. The manager proposed the living room.

Everyone agreed for their vital space needs' sake.

Mitsuki noticed his brother's eyes fluttering everywhere as they went to the living room. He was indeed slower on crutches, but both Mitsuki and Riku decided to stay a bit behind if it meant not living him alone.

"What does using crutches feel like, Iori?" Riku asked, either in legitimate curiosity or just to start a conversation.

"It's walking but without having your hands available. Annoying, but I'd rather have that than being unable to move by myself."

Being forced to immobility really had left a bad taste in his mouth, hadn't it.

"I had to walk on crutches before," Mitsuki commented with a smile as to improve his brother's mood. "It's actually hard to walk on these at first without falling, but as always, you're acing it Iori!"

Iori's face betrayed the fact he had probably tripped several times on these before he joined the dorm back. Riku didn't seem to pick up on it, but he still congratulated his friend on mastering crutches anyway.

After the half-improvised party ended, Mitsuki found himself in Iori's room once again. He wanted to have a private conversation with his younger brother because there was still so much things on his mind, including a question he would have never asked him in front of everyone else. It was to remain in their closed circle of two.

They sat on the bed like they used to when they were children, young children may he have added. It felt like a return to the past but in a contemporary setting, as if it was simply a reset, back to the source, back to where they came from but in a different place.

"Big brother," Iori broke the ice, "you had something to tell me about?"

"Yeah, it's… It's about what happened last week. I remembered something I had to tell you about.

"What is it?"

"Remember when we shot Ainana Police? We discussed what we'd do if one of us got threatened to be shot, right?"

"We did. Why are you bringing it up again?"

"Because I never thought it would actually happen to us. I was just unhappy when you told me you'd protect me because I'm meant to protect you. But now that it has happened, I… I realize how terrifying it was to actually have this happen in front of my eyes. I just want to tell you not to do it ever again, Iori. Just… never again."

"Then, big brother… Can you promise me you won't do that either? I just want to be safe."

"It's a deal."

Iori's eyes still fluttered all over the place.

"What's wrong?" Mitsuki asked noticing how active his glaze was. "Something's weird?"

"When did my room change like this? This isn't the bed I had, and my desk has moved places. When did that happen?"

So he had noticed. Well, it was kind of obvious they had changed stuff around, after all.

"Ah, yeah, I figured you'd notice! We changed some stuff around this afternoon because you can't properly walk around yet."

"Is this why the corridor was strangely clean today and why every room we've been in tonight had a stool too?"

"Yep! We've thought of everything with the manager! We wanted you to feel as comfortable as possible even with your injuries."

He could notice some blushing creeping on his brother's cheeks.

"It wasn't needed…" he cleared his throat and took on a serious face again. "I mean, the stools weren't necessary. My leg isn't broken, it just hurts when I walk on it because the bullet hit right some of the knee's nerves. I do, however, appreciate the effort."

The smirk he took on was obviously fake condescendence.

"Moreover, moving the bed wasn't in any way necessary. I can perfectly climb a ladder this short."

"Iori, you know that's bullshit. According to Riku, you actually can't walk on your left leg without being obviously in pain."

Iori's face was now covered in embarrassment, but at least, it got a smile out of him.

"You're right, big brother, climbing my bed's ladder would hurt tremendously… I'm just not exactly sure what to say about the effort it must have been to move beds around the dorm without damaging anything. Moreover, isn't this bed yours, big brother?"

"It is! I decided to exchange my bed with yours until your leg was fully healed. We all figured it was less awkward since we've both slept in each other's bed at one point back home."

Mitsuki got angry thinking of something else about the bed switch.

"And the guys said that, since I'm short, you wouldn't have too much problem climbing on it even with your injury…"

"It's a way to see things, even if it's rather mean spirited."

"You're gonna side with them on this, Iori?! I swear to God, I'm getting betrayed by own brother! This is a brothercide!"

"I believe the correct word for it is 'fratricide', big brother."

"Whatever that word is! You got what I meant!"

They both laughed. It had, really, been ages since they had both had a fun discussion where they could laugh without thinking of the terrible things out to get them.

"By the way, when I was inspecting the room, I found your secret chest."

"Did… Did the others find out about it?"

"Nah! I made sure to hide it before they came into the room. I'm sure you'll find it easily, since I made sure you didn't have to bend to grab it. I know how much you don't want the others finding out before you can tell them, so I made sure it was safe."

"Thank you very much, big brother."

A soft smile appeared on Iori's face.

"I don't have the words I want to put on how thankful I am for everyone. I was selfish when I thought what I did was only going to affect me, but everyone made sure to welcome me back. I'm not sure how I should repay my debt back."

"Well, I know, and the answer is simple: don't ever do that, you idiot!"

In a swift move, Mitsuki put his arm behind his brother's shoulders and scratched his head. What mattered to him wasn't getting a debt paid back or feeling like his efforts were worth anything. It was that his brother was alive, safe and sound, right next to him. All that mattered for now was that Iori was alive and with them. That life was going to be fine.

He, truly, didn't need anything else at the moment.


	15. End of a Time

Iori looked into the mirror.

He looked fine, at first. He didn't have any noticeable bangs, his eyes were just as usual, the band-aid on his cheek was gone. He wasn't as deadly pale as he was a week and a half before, if what he heard from the medical staff and his bandmates was any indication. He looked healthy. He looked like he was doing fine.

When he was sitting, he looked perfectly fine. He was straight in his chair, looking sharp and self-assured. In fact, when he did, it looked like he had never gone on hiatus and not for a reason which had almost cost his life and his brother's with it. But there was no fooling the fans: they knew he had gone on hiatus because he had gotten hospitalized. He just hoped, deep down, they were still unaware of why.

Inside, he was strangely anxious. Not strangely for the reasons, but strangely for him: anxiety wasn't something he felt often. The job tonight wasn't hard: attend the show with the others, sitting down so it wasn't like he had to show what was truly troubling him, and explain calmly he was coming back while avoiding revealing too much of what had happened to him. The beans had already been spilled more than enough.

The issue wasn't his face. The issue was his leg. While he knew he couldn't move his abdomen too much unless he wanted his wound to get reminded of getting shot, it was another deal with his leg. It prevented him from walking like a normal person. Some people would have thought having to keep a bandage just in case on his abdomen wound was humiliating: the real shame was, in fact, the crutches, because he couldn't hide them. He could hide the sheer ugliness of his gunshot wounds: he couldn't hide the fact he couldn't walk properly.

"Iori, what are you doing? The show starts in half an hour! We're called on set!"

The voice of his brother called for him, breaking him of his stream of consciousness. He turned around, checking one last time if he looked fine, then grabbed the crutches next to his chair and started making his way to the exit of their room.

"I'm coming, big brother."

The show started with Mister Shimooka's usual presentation: yelling at the audience and at the cameras for the audience who wasn't in the audience. It was joyful and would put the people watching the show in a good mood. He followed with a quick presentation of the group, who each rose their hand and said hello as soon as they were called, Iori himself included of course.

Then the audience got showered with reminders to live-comment the show on various social media, especially for the question section of the show where the viewers could ask anything deemed both correct for wide television broadcasting and interesting for the audience and I7 fans to know the answers to. After all, this was exactly the reason why the group had been asked about his whereabouts, one week and a half ago.

It started very well, for the first show he was taking a part of in what felt like weeks (it wasn't too far from the actual length of his hiatus, but it was still feeling longer in his perception of time). The band announced some good news for their celebrity: collaborations with some brands, magazine covers of some of the members, announcement of a live concert in a short while.

The live concert had been its own discourse, before its official announcement. They mostly wondered if they could do it as long as Iori was on crutches: dancing was, in fact, completely closed down to him. He had thought of just taking painkillers and stay up without moving in the background, despite how bad of an impact it would have on him (maybe that he had drunk too much painkillers when saying this too, his abdomen wound had hurt tremendously when he had made a bad move), but they all insisted for him to sit during performances. This was going to be a very static show…

At least, he was no Riku Nanase, so he was no centre: he didn't have to move around be the star of the show. He didn't have to have this exceptional singing and dynamism on stage.

The emission took a sharp turn early after the questions had started. The first one was about the magazine Rokuya was getting interviewed for as a half-Japanese idol in the industry and how strong of an impact his Northmarian side had on him and his performances. From how popular this question had been and from its strange wording, Iori could guess it had been asked by a foreign fan and upvoted by foreign fans too. A question for foreign fans by foreign fans only meant I7's popularity was reaching overseas. Perhaps he would talk about with the manager about it and discuss a way to make something out of their non-Japanese audiences.

Rokuya's response was as excited as always with him, despite Nikaido having to tell him not to invent himself some kind of royal legacy. (Was it that false? Iori wasn't so sure anymore. He'd have to look into that, perhaps learn Northmarian while he was forbidden from physical performance. That could be a way to spend his time without feeling like he was totally wasting it). The audience was amused at his happy squeals, earning some "aww" from some persons watching.

The second question was, of course, going to be about Iori himself. He fully expected it: in fact, if it hadn't been asked, he would have thought someone would be trying to cover something. The trick there was closer to finding a reply which wouldn't give away too much yet fulfil enough curiosity as to completely smother the rumours and noise going around about him.

To be honest, it was exhausting to hear about you all the time. He was meant to start attending class again on the day after, and he was already tired of the future remarks he would get from anyone else about his condition.

The dreaded question flashed on-screen in the form of a massively favourited tweet.

"Are you back for good, Iori-san?"

Everything bothered him in it. The wording made it sound like he had been gone either for a very long time or repeatedly when it was the opposite way around. Mister Shimooka's comment on the situation, "Tonight seems to be an Ask Iori special!" made it even more aggravating. He hated the feelings behind the question: worry, condescendence, _disappointment_. Conflicting feelings, conflicting intentions, conflicting _everything_.

"Yes, I am. I don't plan on taking any hiatus anytime soon either. I'm here to stay."

His brother looked in his direction, confused, puzzled, concerned. In fact, Iori knew he usually avoided replying in short sequences like that: it made him sound like some amateur who didn't know how to speak in public. He couldn't express everything he wanted to convey in short sentences without getting misunderstood by at least one person. Yet, short sentences allowed him to enforce his position as the usually stable member without sounding like he wasn't sure of what sentiment the person behind the question had.

His brother must had been bothered by the short sentence speech pattern he adopted for this reply. Perhaps he should switch to longer sentences which convey a flow of certainty and knowledge. It would also help him assess his position, albeit less efficiently for… slower and denser people, if he had to phrase it nicely. Needless to say, he-

"Next question!"

He did his best to hide his surprise and how startled he had been by the sudden scream of Mister Shimooka. After a small, meant-to-build-up-hype moment, the next question popped on the screen, and it was somehow worse.

"For Iori: what happened to you?"

The reply to the tweet, from the same user as to complete the question, read:

"It's not like you to take a hiatus for anything, you're okay?"

Everybody in the group looked at him. It wasn't very hard to guess, but Iori hated the questions of this kind. He hated getting asked if he was fine, okay, good, anything when it was obvious he had an issue with himself. Well, he always had because he wasn't someone he'd even _like_ , but when it was impossible for him to lie about.

It was once again time to plan his reply strategically. No gunshot wounds. No worry. No details. Only health, things getting better and him coming back to the stage.

"I can't tell you what happened exactly. I can just tell you I got injured," and that bit he was only telling because he'd obviously be on stage on _crutches_ , "which is why I got incapacitated for a few days. There is nothing you need to worry about, I'm perfectly fine."

His bandmates' glazes kept getting heavier on him.

"I mean it. I'm fine. You all overthought this. I need to thank you all for taking care of me and of all the other members of IDOLiSH7. We would be nothing without loving fans such as you all are."

The looks on him were as heavy as lead. And, perhaps because he had already overthought everything himself, he burst out."

"I really mean it! Stop looking at me like I was a glass statue! I didn't get mortally shot!"

The shocked looks all targeted at him made him realize he had said too much. He had just implied he had gotten shot.

"We're getting swamped questions!" Mister Shimooka screamed before anyone else could react. "They're all about if Iori-kun has gotten shot!"

Everyone in I7 looked at him. Everyone in the audience stared at him. There was nowhere to run anymore. Perhaps it would be the worst move in his carrier to reveal such a thing, but he had nowhere else to go. He braced himself.

"I did."

He had stolen the breath of everyone else in the set. The heavy air continued to pollute his lungs.

"I did get shot. This is exactly why I went on hiatus and why we kept the reason hidden from the general public. We did this so it wouldn't cause an uproar, but as always, truth always makes its way to the general audiences."

If only they could feel the true extent of his frustration sipping through the teeth he desperately prevented himself from gritting.

The entire band was speechless, all staring at their youngest member in shock. Mitsuki was the most surprised of them all: he would have sworn Iori would try to keep it hidden as long as possible, until it wasn't any more relevant than some buried event from his past, like the time he had broken his bones when they were such young children. He, truly, didn't expect his little brother to come forward that quickly.

But, inside, Mitsuki knew Iori was feeling cornered. It wasn't in his habits to say something so dryly when it meant so much to him: to everyone but especially to him, it was obvious that the crutches had become one of Iori's biggest shames, if not the biggest at the moment. He could see the cold sweats running down who was usually the calmest of them all.

"W-well then…" Mister Shimooka tried to get the show back on track after the set had sunk into a heavy silence. "We have one more question to go through for tonight! It's the one which has gotten the most votes from the fans? Are you ready?"

The last question flashed on screen, except it wasn't a question, and that, frankly, Iori couldn't believe what he was reading.

"To Iori: don't overdo it and take care! We're just happy to see you again!"

There was a smile irresistibly crawling on his lips and tears swelling up in his eyes. He had been so afraid of causing noise because of the recent events that he had forgotten about how fans usually were. They weren't usually like the obsessed maniacs who were ready to get their hands on his nameplate: they rather were like the two girls from the hospital.

He thought he was immune to fan love. He thought he was over it, not as sensible to persons he didn't know by face or name, a nameless crow slapped under the umbrella name of "I7 fans". He thought he wasn't perhaps better for being so compared to some of his comrades but at least more qualified to judge from another perspective.

And yet, he was smiling like a fool in front of what was the best-case scenario.

Before he knew it, his brother had rolled an arm behind his shoulder and the other members had joined in. Mitsuki and Nanase were going for the hug route while the others stayed close instead. Feeling surrounded by a fluffy heat he wasn't used to, Iori could have sworn he would cry would anything sweeter come around.

"I… I'm grateful for the fans' nice words," he forced himself to sound a least a tiny bit cool. "I hope you'll accept my apologies for being unavailable for a while. Please be here for our next meeting…!"

The warmth was perhaps a bit too much, since he felt water running down his face. Despite showing such an uncool part of him, closer to his secret chest than to his slick desk, it was the best he had felt in the past two weeks and he would have traded it for nothing. His analytical instincts made way for what only streamed from his heart.

"I'm not crying, you're crying," Mitsuki said in someone else's direction.

Once back at the dorm and most of the warmth gone from the body but not from the mind, Iori was with his brother back into his room, still on the latter's bed. In a way, he had forgotten about what he had felt shameful about for a short time: during the warm times, there had been no bullet, no crutches, no tears spilled over how useless he was.

There was no thinking in "utility", "pros", "cons", "better route", "worst-case scenario" or "purpose". There were only seven idols sharing a unit of which he was a part of. No amount of looking at himself in the mirror or looking at his knee as if it had cursed a family over seven generations could erase that fact.

"What did you think of tonight's show, Iori?" his brother asked, smiling to him.

"It went better than I had expected. Nothing went too badly, everybody was careful to what they were saying and it seems like people enjoyed it too."

"Classic Iori, putting everything personal to analyse stuff! I meant for you! Of course I know people liked it, I have social media too you know!"

"Huh…" He got a bit startled. "It felt weird, honestly… I knew I would have to say what had happened to me, but I didn't expect to be cornered so quickly. At least it seems like it calmed people down rather than it provoked them to pursue a truth which will only be toxic for everyone involved."

"To be honest," Mitsuki replied, "we didn't expect you to come so clean about it! It's so far from how you first wanted to prevent us from letting it leak, it's like it wasn't you for a second! I'll admit, it feels good to have you be so straightforward about your feelings for once!"

A question still lingered in his heart.

"Big brother… Do you think the fans will be fine with my disability for the next concert? It's the first time I've seen it happen so I can't tell what will happen. You seem much more knowledgeable in this field than me."

"C'mon, Iori, you're really wondering about that? I'm sure they'll just be happy to see you on stage and singing again! They've missed you! I'm sure they'll take you being safe and sitting than you hurting yourself any day anyway. So don't overthink it again and just go with the wind, okay? You'll be perfect, like always!"

He tapped his little brother's shoulder.

"Plus you should go to bed early and rest! Tomorrow's your first day back to school, you gotta blow them away like always!"

Iori could only smile, stuck between the embrace of his older brother praising him wholeheartedly and facing the wall where nice words from the other members of the group were pinned to the wall. He'd have usually minded something not useful to his thinking on his wall: he didn't mind anything on this wall.

Nikaido's teasing.

Yotsuba's doodle of King Pudding.

Rokuya's Cocona stickers and English babbling.

Osaka's reassuring words filled with care.

Nanase's (successful) attempts at being cute through the drawing of a bunny.

The manager's "welcome back!" and cute apologies.

His brother's words of encouragement.

Ogami and the president's words of watching his back.

No, he didn't mind any of them.

It was time to close the page on the bullet incident. Thinking one last time to his almost-sacrifice, Iori thought it was about time to grasp his life as himself and not as some kind of analyst. With his brother and with everyone else, he'd bring everyone to fame while still thinking of himself, sometimes.

Perhaps his brother had noticed that, because Mitsuki was grinning from an ear to the other as he reminded him to show his cuter sides too.


End file.
